Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Saturday criticised the delay in justice delivery in the country and said it was the poor and the marginalised people who suffered the most.

Addressing a function to celebrate 150 years of the Calcutta High Court, the Vice-President said, it is evident that our progress on achieving the constitutional promise of assuring dignity of the individual and securing to citizens justice, social, economic and political, especially to the poor and disadvantaged, leaves much to be desired.

The vice-president said, there is a pendancy of over 56,000 cases in the Supreme Court, of which around 36,000 are more than one year old.

He said,the pendancy in the high courts and subordinate courts as of December 31, 2010 was around 3.2 crore cases, of which around 85 lakh cases are over five years old.