As thousands of other cases are under consideration, a large number of cases are filed in the Supreme Court every year. How does the Supreme Court decide which cases to prioritize?
Since last month, the Supreme Court has been giving priority to special leave petitions (SLPs). These are cases where the court has issued notices to the parties in the past few years, but has not yet accepted them (leave or leave to appeal).
The court has been hearing these cases for three days of the working week and reserved only Mondays and Fridays for new cases. In effect, the SC is narrowing down the list of cases that require a detailed hearing.
This is part of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjeev Khanna’s plan to address the huge backlog of cases in the apex court. As master of the roster, successive CJIs have tried to address the problem of pendency in various ways.
Weekly case schedule
On November 16, five days after Justice Khanna took over as the 51st CJI, the SC on the administrative side issued a circular stating that hearings would be held on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays “after notification of various matters”.
Also, on Wednesday and Thursday, “no regular hearing case will be listed until further orders”, the circular said.
“Miscellaneous matters after notice” are cases in which the court issues a “notice” to the other party on a “new issue”. Once a case is “accepted” it becomes “subject to regular hearing”. (More on this later.)
This prioritization of cases requiring full-length arguments from both sides, which can either be accepted or rejected, seeks to address the growing backlog of cases in the court. According to the National Judicial Statistics Grid, more than 82,000 cases are pending in the Supreme Court.
“After notice of various matters” the court is required to decide whether to accept or dismiss the appeal. This is often done quickly in a short hearing.
Case types and numbers
According to the book Supreme Court of India: A Data-Driven Account, co-authored by Professor Aparna Chandra of the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, the SC accepts only 14% of the SLPs filed.
SLPs are essentially appeals (against High Court orders) but the SC has to “leave” them to be heard. Dismissal of these cases means immediate reduction in pendency.
However, according to the statistics in the book, in the four years from 2010 to 2014, the Supreme Court heard an average of more than 60,000 such cases each year, before deciding whether to accept them or not.
Appeals, the bulk of which are SLPs, comprise about 92.4% of the court’s docket, and a typical hearing on whether to accept an SLP lasts an average of 1 minute and 33 seconds, the book says.
But once a court takes a case to a full hearing, it takes an average of more than four years before a verdict is reached, with many cases taking “double that or longer.”
On the other hand, regular hearing cases are often pending for years, and this approach only prolongs the pendency.
Other CJIs approach
Chief Justice Khanna’s predecessors in office handled the issue of pendency differently. While CJI Khanna has prioritized admissions stage cases, his predecessors focused on dealing with cases requiring regular hearings and constitutional bench hearings.
From February 2023 till the end of former CJI DY Chandrachud’s tenure, the SC heard regular hearing cases only on Wednesdays and Thursdays. No “miscellaneous matters without notice” were listed on these two days.
Both Justice Chandrachud and his predecessor Chief Justice Yuyu Lalit (who had a short tenure of three months) focused on hearing long-pending constitutional cases.
In his farewell speech, Justice Chandrachud said that during his tenure (November 2022 to November 2024), the pendency of regular cases fell from 28,682 to 22,000.
However, CJI Chandrachud’s tenure also saw a flurry of lawyers “mentioning” their cases for prompt hearing in the CJI’s court.
Travel of cases in SC
Behind the SC’s public-facing functions—which include conducting hearings, writing (and delivering) decisions, and making public appearances—is the court’s administrative machine, the “registry.”
The Supreme Registry has two wings – administrative and judicial. Each of these lines is divided into different sections, which have their own administrative responsibilities such as case listing, technology, court and building related issues, human resources, etc.
Each division is headed by a Registrar, and the Registry as a whole is headed by the Secretary General, who is the highest administrative officer of the Supreme Court and reports to the CJI.
Generally, an Advocate-on-Record (AoR) – a lawyer who is authorized to represent clients in the SC after passing the certification exam – files a case at the filing counter or through the court’s e-mail, along with the necessary supporting documents. – Filing Portal.
The case goes to the “Dealing Assistant” in a part of the court known to lawyers as “Section 1B”. The assistant verifies the identity of the AoR and whether they have been granted power of attorney by the client through a signed power of attorney, and generates a permanent “diary number” for the case.
The petition and supporting documents are scrutinized for any errors such as incorrect party information, absence of signatures, or incorrect formatting. According to the 2018 circular issued by the registry, the defect should be cured within 90 days. In such cases, both the Assistant Registrar and the Superior Officer examine the refiled case to ensure that the defects are corrected.
After verification, the case is registered and sent to the listing department, which under normal circumstances automatically lists it for hearing on the allotted date.
Once a case is “listed”, it comes before the bench as a “fresh” matter. As per SC rules, these cases have been heard for decades on Mondays and Fridays, known as “various days”.
If the court does not immediately dismiss the case, it sends a “notice” to the other party to answer the case against them. Henceforth this case is known as “Notification Miscellaneous Case”. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are also referred to as “non-variety days” or NMDs.
These days, the court lists issues that both parties need to hear, and written submissions are considered before deciding whether to accept the case.
After admission, a detailed “final hearing” is scheduled, after which a decision is delivered.
Depending on the pendency pile, these are the cases where the court uses what kind of cases to list. The hearing of the Constitutional Court is also held on this day.