NJDC is a real time portal on pendency of cases in all Indian courts and until now the Supreme Court was not a part of this database. To be sure, the Supreme Court not being a part of NJDG did not mean that we knew nothing about pendency in the country’s highest court, as it did publish monthly reports on judicial pendency. However, the court’s monthly bulletins did not have information on the vintage or coram-wise (two-judge, three-judge bench, etc.)
Here are four charts which summarise the state of pending cases in the Supreme CourtOnly 0.16 % of India’s pending cases are in the Supreme Court
According to NJDG data, 50.57 million cases are pending in Indian courts. The highest number of cases are pending at the level of district/taluka courts (87.84%), followed by high courts (12.01%). The number of cases pending in the Supreme Court according to the latest data on NJDG is 80,344 (0.16% of total pending cases). To be sure, the volume of cases that get filed at the lower level of the judiciary is also higher when compared to higher courts.
What is the nature of pending cases in the Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court admits and hears a vast range of cases from civil and criminal matters to cases that involve significant constitutional matters and the interpretation of existing laws. The Supreme Court does not always wait for a litigant to bring a case before it. In certain cases, it can take a suo-moto notice on its own. Currently, the most preferred way to make an appeal to the Supreme Court is through SLP (special leave petition). SLP (Under Article 136 of the Indian Constitution) provides the aggrieved party special permission to appeal against any judgement or order passed by any court/tribunal in India. SLP cases constitute 55.4% of the total pending cases in the Supreme Court followed by Civil Appeals (23%). Writ petitions which ensure protection from the breach of the fundamental rights of the citizens constitute 3.54% of the total pending cases in the Supreme Court.
What is the coram-wise pendency in the Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court hears cases in different benches. While most cases are heard in the Supreme Court by two-judge benches, cases that involve substantial questions of the interpretation of law and constitution are heard by five or more judges. NJDG data shows that only 965 cases are pending before benches which need to have three or more judges and 98.8% of the current pendency in the Supreme Court is in matters which are being heard by two-judge benches.
What is the temporal distribution of pendency in the Supreme Court?
The Indian Judiciary is known for lengthy delays. It takes years, sometimes decades for a large number of cases to be disposed after their admission into the courts. 19.3% of the cases pending in the Supreme Court are 5-10 year old matters. 16.84% of the cases are pending for 3-5 years. Cases which were filed up to a year ago have the biggest share in current pendency in the Supreme Court.
To be sure, the Supreme Court does have a very high clearance rate
The Supreme Court Annual Report provides data on the number of cases admitted, number of cases disposed, and number of pending cases each year. The congestion rate for a given year is calculated by dividing the total number of pending cases by the total number of cases disposed of in that year. This number has increased markedly post-Covid and is still to come to pre-pandemic levels. To be sure, a better measure to look at how the court is dealing with the problem of pendency is clearance rate. This is calculated by dividing the number of cases disposed in a particular year divided by the number of cases that are instituted before it in the same year. A clearance rate above 1 indicates that the Court is disposing of (or clearing) more cases than are being instituted. The Supreme Court’s clearance rate was highest in 2022 at 1.015 and it is 0.95 thus far this year according to the latest data on NGDG.
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