Chinese courts at various levels handled an increasing number of petition cases in 2004, said Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), on Wednesday.

According Xiao's report delivered to the third annual session of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC), Supreme People's Court handled 147,665 cases of petitions in 2004, up 23.6 percent year-on-year.

The number of petitions being dealt with by local courts stood at 4.22 million, up 6.2 percent compared to the previous year.

In order to better hear grassroots complaints, China revised its 10-year-old regulation on petitions in January 2005 to strengthen protection of petitioners' legitimate rights.

The revised regulation stipulates "no organization or individual is allowed to retaliate petitioners and offenders will be held to account for his deed."

The revised regulation will take effect as of May 1.