Rahul Hemrajani: A Temporal Analysis of The Supreme Court of India's Workload

A Temporal Analysis of the Supreme Court of India's Workload
Rahul Hemrajani
Tamil Nadu National Law University, Tiruchirappalli.
Himanshu Agarwal*
Project 39A, National Law University, Delhi.
Corresponding author:
Rahul Hemrajani, Assistant Professor (Law), Tamil Nadu National Law University,
Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu – 620027.
E-mail: hemrajanirahul@gmail.com
The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in Indian Law
Review 9th June, 2019 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24730580.2019.1636751.
*
Acknowledgements: We thank Akshat Anand and Ashish Madeti for giving us access to their data sources.
We are grateful to William Hubbard, Nick Robinson, Aparna Chandra, Jane Goodman Delahunty and the
three anonymous peer reviewers for their comments and suggestions. We also thank the participants of the
seminar at Chicago Centre in Delhi titled ‘Empirical Inquiries into the Indian Judicial System’ and the
Supreme Court Colloquium at Jindal Global Law School for their feedback. All errors are our own.
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

A Temporal Analysis of the Supreme Court of India's Workload
Abstract
Empirical research on the workload of the Supreme Court of India remains restricted by data sources.
Existing approaches which adopt the count of cases as their primary measure miss the fact that the capacity
of the Court is largely time driven. Courts have a limited time to hear cases making judge time a scarce
resource. Stating that a court has a certain number of cases pending is insufficient to make inferences about
the court’s congestion, capacity or efficiency. Applying a new data collection technique, we develop a
dataset which records hearing time for each case in the Supreme Court of India. Using the weighted caseload
method, we analyse the disposal rate, pendency and congestion faced by the Court. We find that the Court
faces an unsustainable workload given existing resources and efficiency. We further use the model to
evaluate the efficacy of common suggestions to reduce pendency in the Court. We conclude by discussing
avenues for further research utilising time data.
Keywords:
Indian Supreme Court; Pendency; Arrears; Workload; Oral Hearing; Special Leave Petitions.

I. Introduction
The issue of judicial pendency is one of the most crippling problems faced by the Indian legal
system today.1 Official sources estimate that more than 27 million cases are pending in all courts
in India.2 The Supreme Court of India (“SCI”) is also heavily burdened by this problem, with its
own data reporting a pendency of 55,817 cases, many of them more than five-years old.3 Many
SCI Chief Justices have expressed their concern about the increasing pendency in courts, with one
describing it as the “single most important challenge that the Indian legal system is facing today”.4
1
See 245th Law Commission of India Report, Arrears and Backlog: Creating Additional Judicial (Wo)
Manpower, 3 (2014) <http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/report_no.245.pdf> accessed 26
December 2018 . The report defines “pendency” as “all cases instituted but not disposed of, regardless of
when the case was instituted”.
2
‘National Judicial Data Grid’ (NJDG, 2 October 2018) <http://njdg.ecourts.gov.in/> accessed 12 October
2018.
3
Monthly pending cases - types of matters pending in Supreme Court of India (Supreme Court of India, 1
September 2018) <http://www.sci.nic.in/statistics> accessed 12 October 2018.
4
‘Disposed of over 83,000 Cases in 2014: CJI Dattu’ The Hindu (New Delhi, 27 November 2015)
<http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/disposed-of-over-83000-cases-in-2014-cji-
dattu/article7920028.ece> accessed 12 October 2018; See also, Press Trust of India, ‘CJI T.S. Thakur
laments lack of judges, pendency in his farewell speech’ (Livemint, 3 January 2017)
<https://www.livemint.com/Politics/v4Z20q2nZf2AllrSzyat0O/CJI-TS-Thakur-laments-lack-of-judges-
pendency-in-his-fare.html> accessed 12 October 2018.

While several judicial committees and law commission reports in India have sought to address this
challenge,5 scholarly work dedicated to understanding pendency in Indian courts has been scarce.6
Until recently, the lack of data on Indian courts limited both detailed empirical scholarship and the
possibility of evidence driven policy reform.7 As a committee set up by the SCI to study pendency
pointed out:
5
See for example, 14th Law Commission of India Report, The Reform of Judicial Administration (1958)
<Http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/1-50/Report14vol2.Pdf> accessed 26 December 2018; High Courts
Arrears Committee Report (1972); 77th Law Commission of India Report, Delay & Arrears in Trial Courts
(1978) <http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/51-100/report77.pdf> accessed 26 December 2018; 79th Law
Commission of India Report, Delay and Arrears in High Courts and other Appellate Courts (1979)
<http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/51-100/report79.pdf> accessed 26 December 2018; 124th Law
Commission of India Report, The High Court Arrears -- A Fresh Look (1988)
<http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/101-169/report124.pdf> accessed 26 December 2018; Government of
India, Report of The Arrears Committee 1989-1990 (SCI, 1990); Department Related Parliamentary
Standing Committee, Rajya Sabha, On Home Affairs 85th Report Law's Delays: Arrears In Courts, 2002;
230th Law Commission of India Report, Reforms In The Judiciary-Some Suggestions (2009)
<http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/report230.pdf> accessed 26 December 2018; 245th Law
Commission of India Report, Arrears And Backlog: Creating Additional Judicial (Wo) Manpower (2014)
<http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/report_no.245.pdf> accessed 26 December 2018; Centre For
Research & Planning, Supreme Court of India, Subordinate Courts of India: A Report on Access To Justice
(2016).
6
See for example, Rajeev Dhawan, The Supreme Court Under Strain: The Challenge of Arrears (NM
Tripathi 1978); Upendra Baxi, The Crisis of The Indian Legal System: Alternatives in Development Law
(Vikas Publishing House 1982); Rajeev Dhawan, Litigation Explosion in India (NM Tripathi 1986). K. L.
Bhatia and others, ‘Delay: A Riddle Wrapped In A Mystery Inside An Enigma’ (1995) 37(1) JILI 42;Vijay
K. Gupta, Decision Making In The Supreme Court Of India: A Jurimetrics Study (Kaveri Books 1995);
M.B. Micevska and A.K. Hazra, The Problem Of Court Congestion: Evidence From Indian Lower Courts
(ASLEA 2004) <http://aslea.org/paper/micevska.pdf> accessed 12 October 2018; K.G. Balakrishnan,
‘Judiciary In India : Problems And Prospects’ (2008) 50(4) JILI 461; N. Rehn and others, ‘Justice Without
Delay: Recommendations For Legal And Institutional Reforms In The Indian Courts’ (2010) 2(1) JGLR
<https://ssrn.com/abstract=1679350> accessed 12 October 2018.
7
Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Sindhu K Sivakumar and Shishir Bail, ‘Legal and Judicial Reform in India: A Call
for Systemic and Empirical Approaches’ (2014) 2(1) Journal of The National Law University Delhi 1; G.S.
Bajpai, ‘A Legal System In Crisis Without Empirical Data’ (Deccan Herald, 30 April 2016)
<https://www.deccanherald.com/content/543471/a-legal-system-crisis-empirical.html> accessed 2
October 2018.

Data is manual, sometimes inconsistent, splintered and not available in real time. An accurate and
complete national picture of the performance of the Indian judicial system is not readily available.
It is therefore hardly surprising that there is considerable misunderstanding amongst policy makers
and people at large about the performance of the judicial system at the national level; and the
challenges it faces.8
In 2013, Robinson, using improved data sources, was able to offer an improved analyses of the
SCI’s docket and looked at the workload and pendency in the court from 1993 to 2011.9 Post
Robinson's paper there has been increased interest in empirical analyses of Indian courts. 10 One
such study uses a large sample to describe the types and number of cases the SCI admits, dismisses
and reverses.11 Another, using a comprehensive dataset, is a comparative empirical analysis of the
workload of 21 High Courts in India.12
8
Supreme Court of India, National Court Management System Committee, Policy and Action Plan
(Supreme Court of India, 2012) <http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/pdf/ncmsp/ncmspap.pdf> accessed 12
October 2018.
9
Nick Robinson, ‘A Quantitative Analysis of The Indian Supreme Court’s Workload’ (2013) 10(3) JELS
570.
See for example, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, ‘Consultation Paper on the Supreme Court's Burgeoning
10
Backlog’ (Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy 2015) <https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/reports/2015/10/1/consultation-

paper-on-the-supreme-courts-burgeoning-backlog> accessed 12 October 2018; Vidhi Centre for Legal
Policy, ‘Towards an Efficient And Effective Supreme Court’, (Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy 2016)
<https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/reports/2016/2/8/towards-an-efficient-and-effective-supreme-court> accessed
12 October 2018; Harish Narasappa and Shruti Vidyasagar (eds), State of Indian Judiciary: A Report by
Daksh (Eastern Book Company 2016); Aparna Chandra, William H.J. Hubbard and Sital Kalantry, ‘The
Supreme Court Of India: A People’s Court?’ (2017) 1(2) Indian Law Review 145; Krithika Ashok,
‘Disinclined to Dissent? A Study of the Supreme Court of India’ (2017) 1(1) Indian Law Review 7.
11
Chandra, Hubbard and Kalantry (n 10).
Arunav Kaul, Ahmed Pathan and Harish Narasappa, ‘Deconstructing Delay: Analyses of Data from High
12
Courts and Subordinate Courts’ in Narasappa and Vidyasagar (n 10).

Studies on the workload of Indian courts however, continue to remain limited by the fact that they
adopt the count of cases as their primary measure to study pendency.13 Such approaches miss the
fact that capacity of courts is largely time driven and the time that a judge allocates to hear a case
is a scarce resource. These approaches also miss the varying complexity of different case-types,
and the fact that individual judges have different capacities and may need dissimilar time periods
to decide cases.14 Some cases may be disposed within seconds, while others may be heard for
several hours. Stating that a court has a certain number of cases pending is thus insufficient to
make accurate inferences about the court’s congestion, capacity or efficiency.15
In this paper, we analyse the workload of the SCI using a time measure. In Part III, we explain
how, using the display board of the SCI, we can get a relatively accurate picture of the time spent
on hearing each case. This data, along with public data extracted from the daily cause list and the
case status page of the SCI, helped create a new dataset- “Supreme Court Hearing Time”. In Part
IV, using the weighted workload method, we analyse the disposal rate, pendency and congestion
to calculate the time-deficiency faced by the SCI using both an ideal efficiency as well as an actual
efficiency model. We show that with the current bench strength and working with actual efficiency,
the SCI faces an unsustainable workload, and will not be able to clear pendency. In Part V, we
evaluate the efficacy of common suggestions to reduce pendency in the SCI, including the
13
See for example, Robinson (n 9) who argues that the workload of the SCI has expanded over the years
since the count of admission and regular hearing matters had nearly doubled between 2000 and 2010.
14
Victor E. Flango and Brian J. Ostrom, Assessing the Need for Judges and Court Support Staff (National
Center for State Courts 1996).
<http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?Doi=10.1.1.173.3723&rep=rep1&type=pdf> accessed 12
October 2018.
Andreas Lienhard and Daniel Kettiger, ‘Research on The Caseload Management of Courts:
15
Methodological Questions’ (2011) 7(1) Utrecht Law Review 66, 69.

appointment of additional judges, elimination of court vacations, and the elimination of future
Special Leave Petitions. Finally, in Part VI, we explain how time data opens up new avenues for
the study of courts and recommend the collection of time data across courts to assist evidence-
based policy making.
II. Existing Time and Work Studies on Courts
The idea of looking at an organisation in terms of the time it takes to do certain tasks is a well-
established method to study organisational efficiency. These studies have taken place since early
twentieth century, and have been applied to industries, schools and hospitals.16 Time and work
studies of courts however have been rare.
Many time and work studies on courts measure time in “days” rather than “seconds” required for
a case to be disposed after entering the court’s docket. 17 While such a method may be useful for
aggregate analyses of delay, it may have limited application to a court such as the SCI. This is
because, unlike most other constitutional courts which grant oral hearing to only a small
16
See for example, Ralph M. Barnes, Motion and Time Study: Design and Measurement of Work (7th edn,
Wiley 1980); Ann Hendrichet and others, ‘A 36 Hospital Time and Motion Study: How Do Medical-
Surgical Nurses Spend Their Time?’ (2008) 12(3) The Permanente Journal 25.
17
See for example, Thomas Church and others, ‘Justice Delayed: The pace of litigation in urban trial courts’,
(1978) 2 (4) State Court Journal 3 <https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/digitization/52162ncjrs.pdf> accessed
12 October 2018; Department Of Constitutional Affairs, United Kingdom, Delivering Simple, Speedy,
Summary Justice (2006)
<http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.dca.gov.uk/publications/reports_reviews/deliver
y-simple-speedy.pdf> Accessed 12 October 2018; ‘Don Weatherburn, Grappling With Court Delay’,
Bocsar NSW Crime And Justice Bulletins (Bocsar 1993) 8
<https://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/documents/cjb/cjb19.pdf> accessed 12 October 2018; The Provincial
Court Of British Columbia, Justice Delayed: A Report Of The Provincial Court Of British Columbia
Concerning Judicial Resources (2010) <
http://www.provincialcourt.bc.ca/downloads/pdf/justice_delayed_-
_a_report_of_the_provincial_court_of_british_columbia_concerning_judicial_resource.pdf > accessed 12
October 2018.

percentages of cases filed, the SCI grants an oral hearing in all cases filed before it. 18 As an
organisational practice, the court refers to these as “admission” matters and usually hears them on
Mondays and Fridays. Some of these can last as little as a minute, while other can be spread over
several hours. Once admitted, these cases are termed as “regular” matters which are usually heard
on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Thus, an SCI judge may hear multiple cases over a
working day or hear a single case over multiple days. Further, a large part of an SCI judge’s
working day goes in these oral hearings.19 Due to this practice and the volume of cases filed in the
SCI, it is important to enter into a more fine-grained analysis in order to get a more accurate picture
of its working efficiency.
Some time and work studies have been used to determine ideal judge strength in courts.20 In some
of these conducted by the National Centre for State Courts (“NCSC”) in the United States, “judges
track all of their working time by case type and activity” for a certain number of days in order to
18
The only exceptions to this are review petitions and curative petitions. See Supreme Court Rules 2013,
Part IV.
19
The court usually hears cases for 4.5 hours every weekday.
20
See for example, Matthew Kleiman and others, ‘Workload Assessment: A Data-Driven Management
Tool for the Judicial Branch’, in The Council of State Governments,The Book of The States (The Council
of State Governments 2013) 243 <https://ncsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/ctadmin/id/2088>
accessed 12 October 2018; S. Tallarico and others, Montana District Court Judicial Weighted Caseload
Study 2014 (National Center For State Courts 2014)
<https://courts.mt.gov/portals/189/dcourt/stats/workload/caseload-study2014.pdf> accessed 12 October
2018; J. Douglas and others, West Virginia Circuit Judge Workload Study (National Center for State Courts
2014) <http://www.courtswv.gov/lower-courts/pdfs/circuitjudgeworkloadstudy,finalreport2014.pdf>
accessed 12 October 2018; For a UK-based study see Dame H. Genn and Nigel Balmer, Court Of Appeal
T&M Data Analysis (Department of Justice 2016) <https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-
communications/appeals-to-the-court-of-appeal/supporting_documents/appendix3dataanalysisreport.pdf>
accessed 12 October 2018.

measures the duration of each hearing.21 These durations are aggregated by case-type, and each
case-type is assigned a “case-weight” based on the average duration that it takes to hear that type
of case. Workload is then found by multiplying case weights and the average number of cases
instituted annually. The expected workload (in minutes) is then divided by the available judge time
(number of minutes available with a judge) to obtain the number of judges needed. This is called
the “weighted caseload method” and is preferred over other methods for determining judicial
strength.22
There are however, two limitations of the NCSC studies. First, most of these were conducted over
a period of around 6-9 weeks, which means that the sample data on which they base their
recommendations is relatively small. Second, the study required that judges maintained the data
of time spent on each activity and later entered this data into an internet-based server. This manual
recording and delayed entry of time by judges is inefficient, prone to human error and imposes
considerable demands on judges.23 Further, manually maintaining time data is particularly
unfeasible in the SCI since it hears several hundred cases on a working day.
In India, two kinds of time and work studies of courts have been conducted, both by Daksh. One
study attempts to find the average hearing time per case, by dividing the number of cases in a day
with the working hours of that court.24 The problem is that courts can sit below and beyond their
working hours. Further, cases which are listed are often adjourned without a substantial hearing.
21
Kleiman and others (n 20) 244. See also Tallarico and others (n 20) 6; J. Douglas and others (n 20) 4-5.
22
Hunter Hurst III, ‘Workload Measurement for Juvenile Justice System Personnel: Practices and Needs’
(1999) Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grants Program Bulletin, National Center For Juvenile
Justice <https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/178895.pdf> accessed October 12 2018.
23
Flango and Ostrom (n 14) 73.
24
Narasappa and Vidyasagar (n 10) 10.

This method also gives us no indication of the difference in hearing times between case-types and
courtrooms. The second study places a researcher inside the court to manually record time taken
for hearings.25 In one such case, the researcher observed and recorded the duration of each hearing
in four courtrooms for five days. Such a study is difficult to scale since it will require a researcher
in every courtroom in every court to time proceedings.26 It is also prone to human error, and relies
on the ability of the researcher to accurately map a stopwatch, case-types, case-numbers and
judges.
III. The Hearing Time Data-Set
A. Mapping the Duration of a Case Hearing in the SCI
The SCI hears cases for 4.5 hours a day, 5 days a week.27 The SCI does not sit en banc, rather
judges sit in panels, called benches. The number of benches varies, but may be up to 15 benches
of 2 or more judges each sitting in numbered courtrooms.28 For each working day, the SCI makes
and releases a “cause list” which contains an itemised list of the cases which will be heard by each
25
Daksh, Time And Motion Study Of Four District And Session Court In Bangalore, Karnataka (Daksh
Legal 2016) <http://dakshindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/daksh-time-and-motion-study-of-four-
district-and-sessions-courts-3.pdf> accessed 12 October 2018; Prashant Narang and Surya Prakash B.S.,
‘How to Maximize Judicial Time’ (Livemint, 19 November 2016)
<https://www.livemint.com/sundayapp/kaoojqmldoouvxj098rail/how-to-maximize-judicial-time.html>
accessed 12 October 2018.
26
The problem is that a human researcher can only look at a particular session or day in court, and any
sample obtained through this process will not be random or representative. Since the judge’s capacities,
types of cases heard and the number of cases listed are different for each courtroom, the results obtained
from such a study cannot be easily generalised.
27
For a brief summary of the Supreme Court’s workings, see Chandra, Hubbard and Kalantry (n 10) 150-
155.
28
Due to vacancies and larger benches, all 15 courtrooms of the SCI rarely work together on any given day.
10

courtroom on that day.29 Each case is given a number in the cause list called “item number”. The
cases are usually heard seriatim, with the first item number being heard when the court begins. It
is not unusual for one courtroom to hear over 50 cases in day, especially on Mondays and Fridays
when the court usually hears “admission” cases.
Many courts in India have a “display board” to enable lawyers and litigants to know which item
number in the cause list is being heard in any courtroom at a given time. The SCI has a display
board in the form of a table with columns for the courtroom number and the item number of the
case being heard in that courtroom. The display board is displayed in each courtroom and is also
available for viewing on the internet.30 The court-master of each court room changes the item
number of her court, after the hearing of any case is complete.31 The time an item number remains
on the display board is the amount of time that case was heard.
Each time there was a change in the SCI’s display board, a cloud software would mark a timestamp
along with the courtroom number and the item number that changed. Thus, the software captured
the time an item number appeared on the display board (“Hearing Start Time”) and the time the
item number changed (“Hearing End Time”). The difference between Hearing Start Time and
Hearing End time gave us the duration that the item number was on board, and therefore, the
29
TheSCI’s cause lists can be found at ‘Cause List’ <https://sci.nic.in/causelist> accessed 12 October 2018
30
TheSCI’s display board is available at ‘Display Board’ <https://sci.nic.in/display-board> accessed 12
October 2018.
31
One of the duties of the court masters is to “to ensure that the case being heard is properly displayed on
the digital display board”, see Supreme Court of India, Handbook On Practice and Procedure and Office
Procedure (Supreme Court of India 2017)
<http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/sites/default/files/practice%20%26amp%3bamp%3b%20procedure%2
0and%20office%20procedure%202017%20%28final%29.pdf> accessed 12 October 2018.
11

duration for which that case was heard. This mimicked a stop-watch and gave us the hearing
duration of each case, in each courtroom, for each day.32
B. Populating the Dataset
The item numbers and the hearing duration recorded from the display board was further mapped
to each day’s cause list, which gave each hearing more parameters such as date, case number, case-
type, petitioner, respondent, bench strength and judges hearing the case. This data-set was further
enriched by scraping and adding the information given in the case status page of the SCI website,
for each case heard. The case status webpage contains categories such as the case orders, admission
status, advocates involved in the case and subject matter.33
This was not enough to account for the differential resources spent by the court on each case. Each
hearing of the SCI is before a bench which consists of different number of judges (bench-strength).
The SCI thus spends varying amounts of judicial time resources on each hearing. Attaching
appropriate weights for bench-strength for each case, we developed a workload measure – ‘judge
time’ – i.e. the duration of the case multiplied by the number of judges on the bench.34
The display board of the SCI also tracks matters which take place in the registrar courts. These are
hearings of an ancillary nature, usually to record administrative compliance. Since this paper
32
The hearing time for any given item in any given courtroom is given by the equation dn[it] [ch][dt] =
hst[it] [ch][dt] - het[it] [ch][dt]. Where, dn is duration of hearing; hst is the timestamp of when the hearing
started; het is the timestamp of when the hearing ended; it is the item number.; ch is the court room number;
dt is the date of the hearing.
The case status page of the SCI is available at ‘Case Status’ <http://sci.nic.in/case-status> accessed 12
33
October 2018. When the data was scrapped, this was available at <http://courtnic.nic.in/courtnicsc.asp>.
34
Judge time for any given case hearing is given by the equation jt [cn][ct][cy][dt] = dn[cn][ct][cy][dt] *
bs[cn][ct][cy][dt]. Where jtis judge time; cn is the case number; ct is the case-type; cy is the year that the
case was instituted.
12

examines only theworkload of the judicial staff of the court, we removed these hearings from our
dataset. The display board also tracks “defect” matters. These come for hearing if the parties don’t
cure the defects in their filings before the SCI registry. Since these hearings usually take an
insignificant time of the court, and in any case do not form a part of the incoming docket, we
removed them from our dataset. The data-set also required further cleaning, including the
standardisation of names of individual judges, which had small variations between cause lists, and
removal of cause list based errors such as blank case-types. It is this cleaned data-set, the SCI
Hearing Time dataset, that we have used for our analysis.35
The period for this data-set is 28 January 2016 to 5 December 2016. The data-set lists the time
spent on each case listed in each courtroom for every working day during this period. The sample
size of this study is the 54,164 hearings that took place in the SCI during this period.
C. Data Limitations
Due to its functional nature, and the fact that it is relied upon by lawyers and litigants, the SCI’s
display board is usually well-maintained and accurate. However, in addition to the possibility of
human error, three caveats must be mentioned. First, the minimum time change reflected in our
data is 7 seconds. Even if a case is heard for less than 7 seconds, our data shows that it was heard
for 7 seconds. This does not apply, however, to cases that were not heard at all, which are skipped
on the display board.
35
The data-set currently contains the following columns: unique key, case id, case-type, case year, date of
hearing, court room number, item number, duration of the hearing, bench, judge0, judge1, judge2, judge3,
judge4, judge5, judge6, bench strength, petitioner, respondent, pet. Advocate, Res.advocate, subject matter,
case status. Judge 0-6 denote the name of the judges who sat for the hearing. Pet. Advocate and
Res.Advocate, state the name of the advocate on record for the case, who may not necessarily be arguing
the case. Case status indicates whether the case was pending or disposed at the time of data-collection.
13

Second, while court masters usually close the display board during lunch, we notice from the data
that this is not always the case. Especially in some long hearings, it seems that the display board
is not turned off. Our data thus shows that some cases were heard from 10:30 in the morning to
4:00 in the evening without pause. We do not know whether the court actually recessed for lunch
in these cases, and if so for how long. Since sometimes hearings continue during lunch hours,
especially on miscellaneous days, we have not changed this data.
Third, cases listed for pronouncement of decisions are not tracked. When cases come up for
pronouncement, they are listed in the cause list using an alphanumeric term (eg. 1A) instead of the
usual numeric item number. When the data was collected, the display board could only show
numeric item numbers. In these cases, the court manager did not change the item number from
“1”, when the pronouncement was being made. Hence, our dataset is unable to track the time spent
in pronouncement of orders and judgments. However, relatively little time is spent in these
pronouncements, which are few in number. Hence, the lack of this data should not affect our
aggregate analysis.
IV. Workload Analysis of the Supreme Court
The NCSC appellate court studies, while using the weighted workload method, include non-court
litigation time for the purpose of their analysis. In our study, we do not have data on the amount
of time that a judge spends outside the courtroom preparing for cases. Further, the time taken by
judges in chamber on review and curative petitions, which are decided by circulation, is not taken
into account. We also do not take into account time spent by the SCI registry for case registration,
preparation and management. Workload for this paper, thus, is only defined in terms of the oral
hearing time required by each case. As we have already stated, oral hearing time is a scarce
resource in the SCI and the lack of time to hear cases is the major cause for court pendency.
14

In this paper, like the NCSC appellate court studies, we use the weighted caseload method to
analyse the workload of the SCI.36 To apply this method we go through the following steps:37
1. Calculate the average amount of judge time per hearing in each type of case in the SCI.
2. Determine the average number of hearings in each type of case in the SCI.
3. Multiply the average amount of judge time per hearing by the average number of hearings to
get “disposal time” for each type of case.
4. Multiply the number of cases filed in a year in each type of case by their respective disposal
time to arrive at the total amount of time spent on hearing and disposing incoming cases. Add
this time for all cases to get the total disposal time for incoming cases or “required time”.
5. Determine the amount of judge time available in the court to hear these cases in a year or
“available time” in the SCI.
6. Calculate difference between the Required Time determined in step 4 and the Available Time
in Step 5 to see whether there is a “time deficiency” or “time surplus” in the court.
7. Multiply the number of cases pending in the court’s docket in each type of case by their
respective weights to arrive at the total time required to hear and dispose these cases. Add this
time for all cases to get total disposal time for pending cases or “pending time”.
8. If the court has sufficient time to dispose of incoming cases in Step 6, divide the Pending Time
in Step 7 with the excess time in Step 6, to calculate the number of years it will take to dispose
of pending cases or “break-even point”.
36
See for example, Flango and Ostrom (n 14), stating weighted caseload is the most preferable method of
analysis for a heterogeneous court which hears different types of cases.
37
ibid 25.
15

The weighted caseload method depends on determining the appropriate “weight” for a given type
of case, such that the weight can represent cases with a similar level of complexity. To attach
appropriate weights we had to find a way to aggregate types of cases which are similar.
There are three possible ways that we have identified to aggregate the hearing time dataset to use
it for the purpose of weights. The first is to aggregate the data by the “case-type” attributed to it in
the SCI. When filing a case in the SCI the party has to specify the “case-type” into which the case
should be categorised.38 This categorisation is checked by the SCI registry and becomes the basis
for assigning a case number. For example, a case number can be “Civil Appeal No. 1 of 2017”
where “Civil Appeal is the “case-type”, 1 is the serial number and 2017 is the year of registration.
This case number is used to refer to the case in the cause list and elsewhere. Due to the reliance on
the case number, the categorisation of “case-type” is fairly accurate. The accuracy of “case-type”
is ensured also because the categories are well defined, usually corresponding to a jurisdiction
clause.
Another way of aggregating data is the “subject matter” category. The subject matter category is
specified by the filing advocate from among 329 options.39 Although this is supposed to be checked
38
The Different Types Of Cases Are: SLP (Civil); SLP (Criminal); Writ Petition (Civil); Writ Petition
(Criminal); Civil Appeal; Criminal Appeal; Transfer Petition (Civil); Transfer Petition (Criminal); Review
Petition (Civil); Review Petition (Criminal); Original Suit Transfer Case (Civil); Transfer Case (Criminal);
Writ Petition (Civil)…; Writ Petition (Criminal)…; SLP (Civil) Cc; SLP (Criminal) CRLMP; Motion Case
(Civil); Motion Case (Criminal); Contempt Petition (Civil); Contempt Petition (Criminal); Tax Reference
Case; Special Reference Case; Election Petition (Civil); Curative Petition(Civil); Curative
Petition(Criminal); Arbitration Petition; Ref. U/A 317(1) And Corresponding “D” (Unregistered) Matters
For All The Case-Types. For an explanation of the case-types see Supreme Court of India, Handbook on
Practice and Procedure and Office Procedure (n 31) 16-21.
39
The list of possible subject matters is available at <http://sci.nic.in/case-category> accessed 12 October
2018.
16

by the registry, the categorisation is unreliable since a case can have multiple possible
categorisations. For example, an appeal in a capital case can be classified as both a “Three Judge
Matter” and a “Death reference case”. Moreover, in some cases the subject matter category is left
blank. The difference in subject-matter categorisation assigned by various advocates across time
makes it inconsistent and unreliable for our purpose.40
A third possible way of aggregating data is the “admissions/regular” categorisation used by the
SCI. When a case is filed in the SCI, the registry first determines whether it is an “admission” case
which requires a preliminary hearing to determine admissibility or a “regular” case like a statutory
criminal appeal. If an admission case is admitted in the preliminary hearing, a “notice” is issued
and the case is converted to a “regular” case. The “admissions/regular” category however is too
broad to usefully represent the subjective difference between the hearing times of cases. Further,
in cases which go through both admissions and regular stages, without data on when the case was
admitted, we do not know how the court divided the hearing time. Finally, our data-set does not
categorise the cases into admissions or regular, since the SCI case status page does not contain this
information. Thus, while the admissions/regular distinction is important for practicing advocates,
we do not have the data to usefully make this distinction for the purpose of analysis.
For these reasons, we aggregate data by case-type. Despite large deviations between hearing times
of some individual cases, the case-type category is sufficiently representative of the aggregate due
to our large sample size.41 The SCI has 32 case-types.42 Some case-types are obsolete while others
40
See Robinson (n 9) 575.
41
The average standard deviation of the case-type category is 1407 seconds or around 22 minutes. The
sample size is 54,164 hearings.
42
As displayed on the SCI’s website, <https://sci.nic.in/> accessed 12 October 2018.
17

are rarely used. We have removed the case-types which were not heard during the study period,
since we do not have any corresponding time-data.43
A. Judge-Time required for each Hearing
Figure 1 illustrates the comparative difference between the mean and median hearing time of the
most commonly heard case-types in the SCI during the study period.44 On average, the SCI hears
any given case for around 7 and half minutes. As Figure 1 shows, there is a significant positive
skew in the way the SCI hears cases, and most hearings take less than 3 minutes. There is no
significant difference between the hearing times of criminal and civil cases. Amongst the case
types represented here, transfer petitions, which are petitions requesting the court to transfer a case
from a high court to another or from a high court to the SCI take, on average, the least amount of
hearing time.
Figure 1: Mean and median hearing time for most commonly heard case types in the SCI.
43
The list of case-types that we use is given in Appendix I Table 1. Two important case-types that we do
not have data for are special reference cases and curative petitions. Both of these case-types presumably
take significant hearing times but are not included in our analyses since they were not heard during our
time-period. Since both these case-types are rare, we do not think removing them will change our final
analysis significantly.
44
The disaggregated data for all case types can be found in Appendix I Table 1.
18

To get the judge time measure we need to multiply the hearing time in each case with the number
of judges who heard the case. Figure 2 shows the average hearing time and average judge time
taken per hearing for most commonly heard case-types.45 In most cases judge time is around twice
the hearing time, since most cases in the SCI are heard by a bench of two judges. On average, the
SCI needs around 17 judge minutes for each hearing in any given case.
Figure 2: Average hearing time and judge time for most commonly heard case types in the SCI.
45
The disaggregated figures for all case-types is given in Appendix I Table 2.
19

B. Average Number of Hearings
Judge time indicates the time resources spent by the SCI on one hearing. However, it takes multiple
hearings for the court to dispose of a case. To get the total judge time required to dispose of a case,
we multiply the average judge time in any given case-type by the average number of hearings for
that case-type.
There is no public data on the number of hearings the SCI takes to dispose of a case. However,
after every hearing in all cases, the SCI passes an order, which is available on the case status page
of that particular case. The number of orders passed in a case thus should equal the number of
hearings in that case. Therefore, the sum of the number of orders is a reliable proxy to calculate
the total number of hearings in a given case.
20

To find the total number of orders, we use a second data-set – the case status data-set. This was
obtained by scraping the case status page of all cases available on the SCI website.46 By
aggregating the cases by case type and filtering for “disposed” cases, we obtained the average
number of orders taken to dispose any given case-type.47
Figure 3: Average number of hearings required to dispose of most commonly heard case types in
the SCI.
46
The Case Status data-set contains the following columns: unique case id, case id, original case-type,
original case number, original case year, status, converted, converted case-type, converted case number,
converted case year, connected, connected case-type, connected case number, connected case year,
petitioner, respondent, petitioner advocate, respondent advocate, subject category, date of orders, total
orders, date of disposal, admitted for hearing. The data is available from 2001 to 2015. We have selected
2001 as the cut-off date because the case status data prior to it has multiple errors and is unreliable. The
dataset was verified by both comparing it against Vidhi’s similar dataset for one year, and by manually
testing random case status pages on the SCI; see Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy (2016) (n 10).
47
Two corrections were made to the Case Status data-set. First, in many instances, a case was shown as
“disposed” without a single order. This is an error since even a case that has been dismissed in its first
hearing, will have an order from the court to that effect. For eg. Crl.A. No. 789 / 2014 was disposed of and
the appeal was allowed. However, there are no orders available on the website. We corrected this by adding
one order to all cases which had the tag “disposed” and had zero orders. Second, in many cases which have
been admitted for hearing by the court, the parties are asked to report compliance before the registrar. After
this hearing in the “registrar court”, the registrar passes an order in the case. The total number of orders in
the dataset includes orders passed by these registrar courts. These orders are not court hearings which take
judge time and are thus to be excluded from our analyses. We have accounted for these by subtracting the
average number of registrar orders from the number of total orders in cases which are admitted from
hearing.
21

Figure 3 describes the average number of hearings required for the SCI to dispose of cases of the
most commonly heard case-types.48 A criminal appeal takes the most number of hearings amongst
these case types, at an average of 3.3 hearings per case, while a Writ Petition (Civil) takes the least,
at 1.87 hearings. On average, the SCI take 2.24 hearings to dispose of any given case.
C. Disposal Time for each Case Type
Before we calculate the disposal time, we must deal with the complexity of the Special Leave
Petitions (“SLPs”). An SLP is a petition filed under Article 136 of the Constitution of India seeking
leave to appeal against a decision where no appeal to the SCI lies as a matter of right. Each SLP
is listed ex-parte before the SCI, and judges must decide if notice should be issued to the
respondents and if leave to appeal should be granted. Many SLPs are dismissed at this stage,
48
The disaggregated figures for all case-types is given in Appendix I Table 2. A batch of connected
matters are heard together and have a common order.
22

without notice being issued. There is a significant difference between both the hearing times as
well as the number of hearings required to dispose of SLPs which are admitted and SLPs which
are dismissed. Since our data-set allows us to further disaggregate these two kinds of SLPs, and to
account for this difference, we consider them as separate case types.49
The average time to dispose a case in the most commonly heard case-types (“disposal time”) is
given in Figure 4.50 An average criminal appeal takes the most resources of the court to dispose of
at 125 judge minutes. An average Transfer Petition takes the least amount of court resources to
dispose of at 8 judge minutes. The decision regarding whether an SLP is admitted or not has a
significant impact on the amount of resources the SCI spends on it, with admitted SLPs requiring
around 5 times as many resources than those which are not admitted. The average time to dispose
of any case is 35 judge minutes.
Figure 4: Average disposal time for the most commonly heard case types in the SCI.
49
For a detailed description of how we do this and calculate the disposal times for separate case types, refer
to Appendix II.
50
The disaggregated figures for all case-types is given in Appendix I Table 2.
23

D. Disposal Time for Incoming Cases
Before calculating the total time deficiency or excess of the SCI, we must first examine how much
time is required by the SCI to dispose of incoming cases in any given year. It is only when the
court has the capacity to deal with the incoming docket can it have time leftover to allocate to the
pendency docket. It is not that our model assumes that all incoming cases should be heard first.
Our model only deals with the capacity of the SCI. The order of hearing the cases does not matter.
In case the court hears a pending case first, it will no longer have the capacity to hear an incoming
one - which gets transferred to the pending docket.
24

Data on the number of incoming cases can be obtained from two sources. The first is the case
status page. Since there is a case status page of every case filed in the SCI, we can calculate the
number of cases filed in a year, by quantifying the number of case status pages in each case-type
for each year. The case status data-set has an entry for each case filed.51
The second source of data is the Supreme Court Annual Report.52 It records the number of cases
filed, disposed of and pending at the end of each year. However, this data is not disaggregated by
case-type. Instead figures are divided into admission cases and regular cases. We have already
noted the problem with using these broad categories in our analysis. In any event, there seems to
be a non-trivial discrepancy regarding both incoming and pendency numbers between the case
status data-set and the Annual Reports.53
Part of the discrepancy can be explained by the fact that the inflow-outflow case accounting system
of the SCI, which the Annual Report uses, “effectively counts the same case twice”.54 Robinson
has made a detailed critique of the inflow-outflow system, and shows how the system, “skew(s)
our perspective of the actual workload of the Supreme Court”. 55 Another possible reason for the
discrepancy is the way the court clusters cases together for the purpose of its workload count. In
51
We count the cases which have been “batched” together as a single case. For e.g. SLP(c) 832-836/2012
are three cases, but will have only one entry in our database. This is because these matters lead to the same
case status page, are heard together and have common orders. This is also how other models treat these
cases. See, e.g., Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy (2016) (n 10) 9.
52
Supreme Court of India, Indian Judiciary Annual Report 2015-2016, (Supreme Court of India 2016)
<http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/publication> Accessed 12 October 2018.
53
ibid. According to the case status dataset in 2015, the number of incoming cases was 43,373. However,
as per the annual report 78,444 cases were filed in 2015. 68,555 cases were pending at the end of 2015
according to the case status data-set, while 59,272 cases were pending according to the annual report.
54
Robinson (n 9) 576.
55
ibid 577.
25

1992, the SCI had a pendency of 97,476 cases. In 1993 however, the pendency dropped sharply to
58,794 cases. This change in pendency is explained by the Annual Reports as being due to
“combining” hyphenated cases.56As per Robinson, district judges were brought in 1993 to “club”
cases of the same type together.57 While we have counted what we call batch cases together, we
do not know whether this is the same thing as “hyphenated” cases.58
Whatever be the reason for this discrepancy, since our model is based on case-types, we have no
choice but to use the data available in the case status page. Our numbers are consistent with other
models which take data from the case status page such as DAKSH and Vidhi Centre for Legal
Policy.59 Figure 5 provides the number of cases filed according to the case-status page from 2013-
2015 for the most-common case types.60 Like the NCSC, we use a three-year average of incoming
cases to approximate total workload, as it “smoothens the fluctuations that are likely to be present
when relying on single year filing figures”.61
Figure 5: Three-year average of number of incoming cases filed in a year for the most commonly
heard case types in the SCI.
56
Supreme Court of India (n 52) 63-65.
57
Robinson (n 9) 580.
58
Cases are now batched together by the SCI registry and displayed in the Case Status page.
59
Daksh dataset <http://zynata.com:60099/base/src/index.html#/access/signin?Portal=dakshlegal.in>
accessed 12 October 2018; Vidhi Centre For Legal Policy Dataset For 2014 Cases,
<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0b7zrlhvfgwnyr2zvx0zxcwoxwvk> accessed 12 October 2018.
60
The disaggregated figures for all case-types are provided in Appendix I Table 3.
61
J Douglas and others (n 20).
26

To calculate total judge time required to dispose all incoming cases, we multiply the number of
cases instituted for each case-type with the average judge time required to dispose each case.62
Figure 6 depicts the judge hours required to dispose of all incoming cases of the most commonly
heard case types. Comparing Figures 5 and 6, we can see that while SLPs constitute more than
80% of the incoming docket by numbers, they require only about 63% of judge time. Summing up
the judge time required to dispose of all incoming cases of all case types, we get a total disposal
time of approximately 19380 judge hours.63 This figure can be interpreted as follows: if the SCI
had one judge, it would take them 19380 hours to dispose of all incoming cases filed in a year.
Figure 6: Number of judge hours required to dispose all incoming cases of the most commonly
heard case types in the SCI.
62
The disaggregated figures for all case-types are provided in Appendix I Table 4.
63
Ibid.
27

E. Total Available Judge Time
The total amount of time available with the court to hear cases can be calculated through two
separate models, the ideal efficiency model and the actual efficiency model.
1. Ideal Efficiency Model
The ideal efficiency model assumes that judges fully utilise every working hour of the court for
hearing cases. In this model, the total resources available with the SCI is obtained by multiplying
the number of judges at the court with the number of working days and the number of working
hours each day.
28

As per the SCI calendar the court worked for 179 days in 2016.64 On these days, as per the court
rules the court ordinarily sat from 10:30 - 4:00 for the purpose of hearing cases.65 Factoring one
hour for lunch, the total ideal working hours available each day was 4.5 hours. Since the court had
an average of 26.46 judges in 2016, the total ideal judge hours available to the court in 2016 for
non-vacation days was 21314 judge hours.66
However, even during some vacation days, a bench of 2 judges sits to hear cases. In 2016, a
vacation bench sat for 34 days.67 Adding the hours available with the vacation bench, the total
number of judge hours which were available to the SCI for hearing cases under ideal conditions
was 21620 judge hours.68
2. Actual Efficiency Model
In real life conditions, judges almost never use the ideal amount of time available. Judges may
have other administrative responsibilities which take time away from hearing cases. Moreover,
judges may finish hearing all cases in the cause list for the day and yet have working hours left.
These and other factors like benches sitting late, judges taking leave, preclude ideal utilisation of
working hours. We have the data for how much time the judges actually heard cases from 28th
January to 5th December. By comparing this data with the ideal time model for the same period,
64
Supreme Court of India, 2016 Calendar <https://www.sci.gov.in/calendar> accessed 12 October 2018.
65
See, Supreme Court Rules, 2013. The rules only specify the working hours for non-miscellaneous days.
In our “ideal” model however, we assume that the same working hours applies to the miscellaneous days.
66
For the calculation, see Appendix III Table 10.
67
Supreme Court of India, notification F.No.44/V.Judges/2014/Sca(Genl.) dated 05.06.2016,
<https://www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in/pdf/cir/2016-05-07_1462610634.pdf> accessed 12 October
2018.
68
29

we can obtain the efficiency rate of the court. The SCI heard cases for a total of 16445 judge hours
during the relevant period, compared to the 18743 judge hours that would be available under the
ideal efficiency model.69 The SCI thus had an efficiency of 87.79%. To get the actual time spent
for the entire year we multiply the ideal time available for the entire year with this judge efficiency
figure. Thus, the judge time spent by the court in 2016 under actual conditions was 18980 judge
hours. 70
F. Judge-time deficiency/excess for Incoming cases
Once we have obtained the total resources (18980 judge hours) and total expenditure (19380 judge
hours) of judge time by the SCI in 2016, the resource surplus or deficiency can be found out simply
by subtracting the two figures.71 The SCI had a time deficiency of 401 hours in 2016 as per the
actual time model. Since there is deficiency, the court can never clear its pendency docket at its
actual efficiency and bench strength.
This deficiency is specific to the year 2016 - with an average of 26.64 judges hearing cases at any
given time in the SCI against a sanctioned capacity of 31 judges. This deficiency is also in tune
with the trend reflected in the Supreme Court Annual Report.72 As per the report, in 2016, the SCI
could not clear its incoming docket of 79,244 cases and disposed of only 75,979 cases.
69
As an aggregate figure, this number does not take into account the dispositions of individual judges. Even
in our model there was a wide discrepancy in the total judge-times amongst courtrooms. Clearly, this
numbers will depend on whether any new judge who joins the bench is a “fast” or a “slow” judge.
70
71
72
Supreme Court of India, Indian Judiciary Annual Report 2016-2017 (Supreme Court of India 2017)
<https://sci.nic.in/pdf/annualreports/annual%20report%202016-17.pdf> accessed 12 October 2018.
30

G. Disposal Time for Pending Cases
For pending cases, we split up our analysis for two kinds of cases which are in two different stages
of hearing. First, we calculate the amount of time required to dispose of pending cases with no
orders passed. These cases have never been heard and thus can be treated like incomings cases.
Here, we multiply the average judge time required for each case type with the number of pending
cases with no orders, to get the disposal time.73
Second, we calculate the amount of time required to dispose of pending cases that have already
had one or more hearings. To account for this, we proportionately reduce the number of hearings
already concluded from the number of hearings required to dispose of the case. For this, we
subtract the median number of orders passed in pending cases of that case type from the average
number of orders required to dispose of that case type.74 To get the total disposal time for cases in
this stage, we multiply the number of hearings remaining with the average judge time for each case
type.75 Summing up the disposal time for pending cases in which no orders have been passed, and
those in which at least one order has been passed, we get 44900 judge hours. Thus, the model
73
The disaggregated figures for all case-types are given in Appendix I Table 5.
74
In each case type, to approximate the number of orders already passed, we take the median number of
orders in all cases with a “pending” tag in the case status page and which have one or more orders. We use
median orders passed instead of mean, since the data is highly skewed and includes cases which have been
pending for a long period of time. In fact, for many case-types, the average orders passed in pending cases
is more than the average orders it takes to dispose cases. This is because several pending cases cannot fit
into our regular model. For example, TN Godavarman Thirumulpad v Union Of India Writ Petition (Civil)
No. 202 of 1995 (Supreme Court of India), also known as the forest case is a continuing mandamus on
forest rights and has already had 533 hearings in its 23 years of existence. Such cases are not meant to be
“disposed”, but are meant for the court to pass regular orders on a particular subject matter. For why these
cases exist, see Mihika Poddar and Bhavya Nahar, ‘Continuing Mandamus - A Judicial Innovation to Bridge
the Right-Remedy Gap’ (2017) 10(3) NUJS l. Rev 555. Thus, we think the median better captures the stage
that a typical pending case is at in the court.
75
The disaggregated figures for all case-types are given in Appendix I Table 4.
31

predicts that if the SCI had one judge, it would take them 44900 hours to dispose of all cases
pending at the time of data collection.
H. Break-even Point
As we have already pointed out, since there is a time deficiency, the SCI cannot clear its pendency
docket with its 2016 resources. We can, however, calculate the total time required for the SCI to
clear all backlog if it had hypothetically worked at ideal efficiency. Presuming that the rate of
incoming cases remains constant, since the court would have an excess capacity of 2239 judge
hours, it will take 20 years to clear the docket of the SCI at ideal efficiency. 76 This is the break-
even point. Post that, the SCI will not have pendency, and will only have to deal with incoming
cases.
This number is bound to change every year. For example, in 2017 new judges were appointed to
the SCI and the number of judges increased to 28. Further, in a rare move, the SCI in 2017 had
decided to hear 3 constitutional bench cases during the summer vacations.77 Thus, all other things
remaining the same, more judge time would have been available in 2017.
V. Testing Suggested Methods to Reduce Pendency
Several scholars have suggested methods to reduce pendency of the SCI and to achieve a
sustainable workload.78 Till now, however, there has not been a way to empirically test these
methods or measure their efficacy. In this section, we test a few of the most common methods
76
77
Press Trust of India, ‘3 Constitution Benches To Sit During Sc Summer Vacation’ (Business Standard, 2
April 2017) <https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/3-constitution-benches-to-sit-during-
sc-summer-vacation-117040200522_1.html> accessed 12 October 2018.
78
See for example N Rehn and others (n 6).
32

suggested to reduce pendency - appointing more judges, decreasing court vacation days, reducing
admission rates and removing all SLP cases.
There are, of course, more than four suggestions to reduce pendency, but we would need additional
data points to shed light on many of these.79 For example, one suggestion is that all admissions
should happen by circulation rather than oral hearing, as in the Supreme Court of the United States.
However, since our data does not differentiate between admission/regular hearings, we cannot test
this with our current data. Our data also cannot test suggestions based on bench assignment, such
as the creation of specialised benches for certain subject matters, which might make the court more
efficient.
In testing these suggestions, it should be kept in mind that we are neither determining the ideal
time to hear cases nor are we determining the qualitative difference between cases heard for
different periods of time. For example, having an outer limit for oral hearings may reduce the total
workload of the SCI, but may result in less just outcomes. Fixing appropriate outer limits thus
requires normative ascription of hearing time which is not within the scope of this paper. All we
test is the effect that some of these suggestions will have on the workload of the court, all other
things remaining the same.
79
Other than those mentioned above, some common suggestions include clubbing and disposing of several
similar cases with one order, using artificial intelligence for court management, placing an outer limit on
oral arguments, removing the practice of adjournments and pass overs, prohibiting lawyer
strikes, supplementing oral arguments with written briefs, and truncating daily lists. See for e.g. 230th Law
Commission of India Report (n 5); TR Andhyarujina, ‘Improving the Working of the Supreme Court’
(2005) 2 SCC (Jour) 41; Conference Proceedings of National Initiative to Reduce Pendency and Delay in
Judicial System (Supreme Court of India, 2018).
33

A. Appointing more Judges to the SCI
1. Appoint Sanctioned Strength
At its inception, the Constitution of India sanctioned the appointment of 8 judges to the SCI.80 The
Constitution empowers Parliament to increase this sanctioned strength, which it has done on
multiple occasions.81 The last of these was in 2008, when the sanctioned strength was increased to
30 puisne judges and 1 Chief Justice of India.
Despite this increase, the SCI in 2016 functioned with a maximum of 27 judges at any given time.
It is not difficult to calculate the surplus judge time available if the court in 2016 always functioned
at its sanctioned capacity of 31 judges. Merely appointing judges up to the sanctioned strength will
increase the total available judge time by 15.5%. If 31 judges work at actual efficiency, the court
will break-even in 18 years.82
One analysis suggests that adding judges would not help, since judges typically adjust the time
they take per hearing based on the overall pendency.83 The analysis posits that if we add judges,
individual judges will simply increase the amount of time they spend on each hearing, and maintain
the overall rate of disposal. In our study period, we did not find evidence of this. The average
80
The Constitution of India 1950, art124.
81
The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act 1956; Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act
1960; Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act 1974; Supreme Court (Number of Judges)
Amendment Act 1986, Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act 2009.
82
For the calculation, see Appendix IV Table 13.
83
Simi Rose George, ‘Releasing India’s Supreme Court from the Shadow of Delay’ (Master’s thesis,
Harvard University 2014)
<https://www.hks.harvard.edu/index.php/content/download/66823/1240102/version/1/file/sypa_simigeor
ge_2014.pdf> accessed 10 April 2017.
34

hearing time spent by any judge for each case-type remained relatively constant during this time,
even though the size of the court varied over the course of the year. Further, more cases were heard
by the SCI when more judges were appointed. Thus, we find no evidence that adding judges leads
to a decreased rate of disposal for individual judges.
Since vacancies in the SCI should be filled, for all suggestions after this, we assume that the court
will work at full sanctioned strength.
2. Increase Sanctioned Strength/ Add temporary Judges
Many have suggested an increase in sanctioned strength or the sharing of capacity through the
creation of a separate appeals court in order to solve the problem of pendency. 84 Others have
suggested the appointment of ad-hoc judges to address the pendency docket.85 Article 127 of the
Constitution allows the appointment of ad-hoc judges from High Courts. Similarly, Article 128
allows retired judges of the SCI to hear cases. Both these provisions can be used to reach the break-
even point faster. If 12 additional judges were appointed over and above the sanctioned strength,
the court would break-even in 5 years at actual efficiency.86
84
229th Law Commission Of India, Need For Division Of The Supreme Court Into A Constitutional Bench
At Delhi and Cassation Benches In Four Regions At Delhi, Chennai/Hyderabad, Kolkata And Mumbai
(2009) <http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/report229.pdf> accessed 26 December 2018; K.
Venugopal, ‘Towards A True Constitutional Court’ (The Hindu, 29 April 2010)
<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/towards-a-true-constitutional-court/article16373484.ece>
accessed 12 October 2018; V.Venkatesan, ‘Case for Appeal Courts’ (Frontline, 27 May 2016)
<https://www.frontline.in/cover-story/case-for-appeal-courts/article8581212.ece> accessed 12 October
2018.
85
See for example, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy (2016) (n 10).
86
35

B. Eliminate Court Vacations
Another common suggestion to reduce pendency is the removal of court vacations.87 Many judges,
however, believe that removing all vacations is not a good solution to solve the congestion
problem.88 It is claimed that firstly, vacations are often used to write judgements. Secondly, they
claim that being a judge of the SCI can be an extremely stressful job and it is important that the
institution allows judges some break to relieve this pressure. It is possible then that judges will
perform at lower efficiency were they not given this break. On the other hand, the fact that the SCI
has more non-working than working days is a cause of much frustration for litigants. In fact, many
Chief Justices of India have themselves criticised the concept of court vacations.89
Assuming that judicial efficiency will not drop, removing vacations can help in reducing pendency.
In 2016 for example, the court worked for 179 days and was on vacation for 61 days, excluding
public holidays and weekends. Removing these court vacations while keeping public holidays and
weekends intact, will reduce the time it will take to break even to 4 years.90
87
Bibek Debroy, ‘Holidays, yours And mine’ (The Indian Express, 13 April 2017)
<http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/holidays-yours-and-mine-supreme-court-summer-
vacation-norms-pending-matters-4610903/> accessed 12 October 2018; Raghul Sudheesh and Bharat R.
Itagi, ‘Why does our supreme court vacation so much?’ (Firstpost, 9 August 2011)
<http://www.firstpost.com/ideas/why-does-our-supreme-court-vacation-so-much-57236.html> accessed
12 October 2018.
Harish V. Nair, ‘HC rejects plea to ban break for judges’ (Hindustan Times, 4 July 2013)
88
<https://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/hc-rejects-plea-to-ban-break-for-judges/story-
o3htwrfdrks1aj5czpb6sm.html> accessed 12 October 2018.
89
See for example Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar, ‘Chief Justice moots idea of courts working during vacations’
(The Wire, 21 March, 2016) <https://thewire.in/25449/chief-justice-moots-idea-of-courts-working-during-
vacations/> accessed 12 October 2018; Dhananjay Mahapatra, ‘CJI wants courts to stay open all 365 days’
(Times of India, 16 May 2014) <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/cji-wants-courts-to-stay-open-all-
365-days/articleshow/35175588.cms> accessed 12 October 2018.
90
36

C. Remove SLP Jurisdiction
According to many, SLPs overextend the jurisdiction of the SCI to frivolous or petty issues.91 As
Dhawan puts it, “The big bugbear for the Supreme Court is the special leave petition (SLP) which
the Constituent Assembly hoped would be used sparingly, but which now dwarfs the work of the
court”.92 He accordingly advocates for an abolition of future SLPs.
Evidently, SLPs contribute disproportionately to the workload, with the case-type forming 63% of
the incoming resource load. It is obvious then, that the removal of the SLP case-type will free up
a lot of time. If all future SLPs are disallowed and the court works with sanctioned strength, the
SCI will break-even within 4 years.93
While it is true that there is a growing docket of SLPs, it is also true that the court already takes a
minimal amount of time to hear SLPs. A non-admitted SLP for example, is given as little as 7 and
a half minutes of average hearing time. For many cases, the SLP is invariably the last judicial
remedy available to the litigants. Some of the major cases in the last 10 years have been generated
Arthad Kurlekar, and Jaimini Vyas, ‘Special Leave Petitions, An Impediment to Justice: Need for
91
Structural Changes to Ensure Efficient Time Allocation of the Court’ (2014) 3(2) Nirma University Law
Journal 87.
Rajeev Dhawan, ‘What’s Eating the Supreme Court of India?’ (DailyO,
92
2016),
<http://www.dailyo.in/politics/supreme-court-special-leave-petition-law-indian-judiciary-
corruption/story/1/9649.html> accessed 12 October 2018.
93
37

from the SLP system.94 While the SCI may have drifted away from the original rationale of SLPs,95
disallowing the SLP will require a major constitutional amendment, and will radically reorganise
the current judicial process.
D. Reduce SLP Admission Rates
Robinson, amongst others, has suggested that the only way to reduce pendency is to reduce
admission rates.96 He suggests that the SCI could have chosen as little as a third of the cases and
“still dealt with all the cases that involved important questions of law, while checking the worst
excesses of government power or neglect”.97 While we do not have data to track admission rates
of all cases, we can determine what will happen if the court reduces its SLP admissions rate. From
2009-2014, the SCI on average admitted around 21% of all SLP’s filed.98 If it admitted around
half that number, the court would break-even in 9 years.99
94
State of Karnataka v State of Tamil Nadu, Civil Appeal No. 2453/2007 (Supreme Court, February 2018)
(Dispute settling the 30 year long interstate river water dispute between the state of Karnataka and the state
of Tamil Nadu); Govt. of NCT of Delhi v Union of India, Civil Appeal No. 2357/2017 (Supreme Court, 4
July 2018) (deciding on the relationship between the centre and state government in the governance in
national capital territory of New Delhi); Dhal Singh Dewangan v State of Chhattisgarh, Criminal Appeal
No. 162-163/2014 (Supreme Court, 23 September 2016) (acquitting an accused who had been on death
row for the murder of his wife and five daughters).
95
Nick Robinson, ‘Hard to Reach’ (Frontline, 12 February 2010) <http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/a-
court-adrift/article4613892.ece> accessed 19 June 2019.
96
Nick Robinson, ‘A Court Adrift’ (Frontline, 3 May 2013) <http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/a-court-
adrift/article4613892.ece> accessed 12 October 2018.
97
ibid.
98
We do not take 2015 data, since many matters filed in that year were still pending and not converted. We
do not have data of conversion ratio post-2015.
99
The calculation is made by halving the conversion ratio of conversion matters for all SLPs. For the
calculation, see Appendix IV Table 15.
38

It is difficult to determine how many SLPs the court should admit. In fact, as Figure 7 shows, SLP
admittance rates have declined dramatically over the last decade.100 We do not know whether this
is because the court has consciously been more selective in admitting petitions, or because the
kinds of petitions being filed have changed. In any event, many argue that there are good reasons
unique to the Indian socio-economic and political landscape which necessitate that the SCI should
accept a large number of cases.101 For many litigants, the court and its SLP jurisdiction serve as
the last resort against errors of an unreliable lower court system. As Chandra et al. show, the SCI,
unlike low-admission rate courts such as the US Supreme Court, is not concerned merely with
norm-creation, but also individual “case-by-case” error correction.102 The high rate of admissions
is according to them “consistent with the vision of the Supreme Court as a court where an
individual can seek justice when he or she has not received justice at any other level of the
judiciary”.103
Figure 7: SLP Admittance Rates from 2001-2014.
100
The data for some of the recent years may be skewed by the fact that there are a lot of pending SLPs,
which get converted by the court only at the time of disposal. Even if we account for these, there is still a
downward trend in the number of SLPs converted by the court every year.
See for example Vivek Reddy, ‘Changing Role of The Supreme Court – A Response To Nick Robinson’,
101
(Lawandotherthings, 3 January 2009) <https://lawandotherthings.com/2009/01/changing-role-of-supreme-

court-response/> accessed 12 October 2018.
Chandra, Hubbard and Kalantry (n 10). See also Rishad Ahmed Chowdhury, ‘Missing the Wood for the
102
Trees: The Unseen Crisis in the Supreme Court’ (2012) 5 NUJS L. Rev. 351.
103
ibid.
39

40

E. Accounting for Increase in Incoming Docket
In testing the suggestions listed above, we have assumed that the number of incoming cases of the
SCI will remain constant at the 2013-2015 three-year average level. This is unlikely to be the case.
The number of incoming cases since 2001 have shown a trend of increasing every year. Figure 8
shows the total number of judge time required for the court, if this trend continues after 2015. We
can predict the increased number of cases in each case type using both a linear regression and an
exponential triple smoothing model.104 If the trend of increased filings continues, appointing the
sanctioned number of judges will no longer be sufficient to clear pendency as the court will begin
to experience a time-deficiency from 2018 under both models. Even with this increased workload,
however, there may not be a need to adopt a radical solution like removal of all future SLPs or
elimination of court vacations. A similar result can be achieved by combining three already
suggested solutions. The break-even point can be brought down to 6 years under both models by
appointing judges up to the sanctioned strength, reducing the vacation to 30 days and appointing
5 additional judges. Post this, under both models, the SCI will be able to handle its incoming load
till at least 2030.
Figure 8: Forecast for Total Resources Required for Incoming Cases.
104
In the linear regression model, we apply the FORECAST. LINEAR function in excel to the incoming
data for each case type from 2001-2015 to obtain the number of incoming cases for 2016-2032. In the ETS
model, we apply the FORECAST.ETS function in excel to the incoming data for each case type from 2001-
2015 to obtain the number of incoming cases for 2016-2032.
41

VI. Conclusion
The calculation of time-deficiency is but one form of analysis which can be done using the hearing
time dataset. This dataset allows considerable opportunity for further research, especially for the
purpose of testing policy insights empirically. For example, one of the most important problems
that the SCI faces today is setting up constitutional benches. Each Chief Justice of India must
decide whether to constitute and hear constitutional bench cases which require five judges. These
are important cases which settle substantive questions of law, but the trade-off is that the five
judges are not be able to hear several day-to-day cases. The hearing time dataset allows us to
calculate the trade-off precisely, and understand how many, and what kind of cases will not be
heard, if one constitutional bench is constituted. This data will allow Chief Justices to make a more
informed decision about setting up a constitutional bench.
The display board technique can also be used to make policy decisions beyond the SCI. Recently,
the Law Commission of India recognised the time-based method to determine ideal number of
42

judges required for the district court but rejected it because “no scientific data in this regard is
available”.105 The Law Commission then suggested the “Rate of Disposal” method.106 However,
due to its reliance on the case count measure, the rate of disposal method suffers from the same
deficiencies as existing empirical research. Noting this flaw, the rate of disposal method was
criticised by the National Court Management Systems Committee (NCMSC) which stated that in
the long term judge strength “will have to be assessed by a scientific method to determine the total
number of “judicial hours” required for disposing of the caseload of each court...This will require
gathering required data…”107 The creation and the use of display boards in these courts can supply
this data and will enable more accurate decisions about judge-strength required in the lower courts.
Time and work analysis in general can be used to compare and evaluate the varied design choices
of judicial institutions. For example, the question of limiting oral hearings has received
considerable attention in India.108 The SCI does not have any time limits for oral hearings, and the
time given for any party to argue their cases is left to the discretion of the individual judge. The
Supreme Court of the United States, on the other hand, is strict about its oral hearing times, and
limits time for arguments. Both practices have been criticised for their respective demerits.109
105
See Law Commission of India (n 1) 23-24.
106
ibid 25.
Mohal Gopal, ‘Note for Calculating Required Judge Strength for Subordinate Courts for Submission to
107
the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India as per its directions to NCMS’ in Imtiyaz Ahmad v State Of UP & Ors.
Criminal Appeal No 254-262 of 2012 (Supreme Court, 1 April 2016)
<http://doj.gov.in/sites/default/files/ncms%20report_0.pdf> accessed 12 October 2018.
108
See for example Mohd. Arif v The Registrar, Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Criminal) No.77 of
2014 (Supreme Court, 2 September 2014).
109
For a comparison of the SCI and the Supreme Court of the United States, see T.R. Andhyarujina,
‘Studying The U.S. Supreme Court's Working’ (1994) 4 SCC (jour) 1; see also Nick Robinson, ‘Structure
Matters: The Impact Of Court Structure On The Indian And U.S. Supreme courts’ (2013) 61(1) Am. J.
Comp. L173; For a critique of the U.S. Model see, B. Sullivan, & M. Canty, ‘Interruptions in Search Of A
43

Having time data, would help us investigate any correlation between hearing times and the quality
of decision making. Knowing the precise time data can thus help arbitrate between these choices
and ascertain the comparative efficacies of institutional policies of courts around the world.
Purpose: Oral Argument in The Supreme Court, October Terms 1958-60 and 2010-12’ (2015) Utah L. Rev.
1005.
44

APPENDIX I
Data Tables for all Case Types
Table 1: Average, Median and Maximum Hearing Time per Case-Type

Mean of Time
Median of Time Maximum Time
Heard, in
Case Type Heard, in Seconds Heard, in Seconds Number of Hearings
Seconds
(Minutes) (Minutes)
(Minutes)
Arbitration Petition 234 (3.91) 58 (0.97) 2745 (45.75) 112
Civil Appeal 1108 (18.46) 144 (2.40) 20368 (339.47) 6926
Contempt Petition (Civil) 2030 (33.83) 207 (3.45) 19481 (324.68) 107
Criminal Appeal 1063 (17.72) 149 (2.48) 19344 (322.40) 2430
Curative Petition (Civil) 28 (0.47) 28 (0.47) 28 (0.47) 1
Original Suit 1435 (23.92) 155 (2.58) 7883 (131.38) 68
REF. U/A 317(1) 5452 (90.87) 122 (2.03) 19881 (331.35) 7
Review Petition (Civil) 1076 (17.93) 280 (4.67) 6354 (105.90) 15
Review Petition (Criminal) 1016 (16.94) 483 (8.05) 3172 (52.87) 8
SLP (Civil) 346 (5.76) 93 (1.55) 21038 (350.63) 20920
SLP (Civil) CC 165 (2.74) 78 (1.30) 8430 (140.50) 7300
SLP (Criminal) 315 (5.25) 94 (1.57) 19982 (333.03) 7611
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP 167 (2.78) 82 (1.37) 14403 (240.05) 3245
Suo-Moto W.P (Civil) 685 (11.42) 299 (4.98) 1832 (30.53) 9
Suo-Moto W.P (Criminal) 1970 (32.83) 1100 (18.33) 5878 (97.97) 7
Transfer Case (Civil) 5729 (95.49) 6769 (112.82) 14551 (242.52) 20
Transfer Petition (Civil) 159 (2.65) 64 (1.07) 9429 (157.15) 2841
Transfer Petition (Criminal) 155 (2.59) 71 (1.18) 7090 (118.17) 492
Writ Petition (Civil) 755 (12.58) 136 (2.27) 19994 (333.23) 1619
Writ Petition (Criminal) 719 (11.98) 122 (2.03) 20108 (335.13) 426
All Cases 447.25(7.45) 94 (1.54) 21038 (350.63) 54164
NOTE: The table gives the mean, median and maximum hearing time for all twenty case-types heard
during the period of study. The rest of the 12 case types were not heard during this time. As we
have noted above, the minimum time that our software can record is 7s. These numbers must be
interpreted in that light.
Table 2: Average Judge Time taken per hearing

Average Judge Time Taken
Average Judge Minutes
Case Type per Hearing (in Judge Average of Total Orders
to Dispose Case
Minutes)
Arbitration Petition 10 4.26 41
Civil Appeal 43 1.94 84
Contempt Petition (Civil) 69 1.96 136
45

Criminal Appeal 38 3.3 125
Original Suit 109 13.58 1484
REF. U/A 317(1) 273 3.83 1044
Review Petition (Civil) 47 1.04 49
Review Petition (Criminal) 50 1.02 51
SLP (Civil) NC 8 1.79 14
SLP (Civil) - Civil Appeal 17 3.95 67
SLP (Civil) CC NC 6 1.22 7
SLP (Civil) CC - SLP (Civil) 6 1.68 11
SLP (Civil) CC - Civil Appeal 14 3.07 42
SLP (Criminal) NC 8 1.79 14
SLP (Criminal) - Criminal Appeal 15 4.36 67
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP NC 5 1.15 6
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP -
6 1.9 12
SLP(Criminal)
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP - Criminal
17 4.76 81
Appeal
Suo-Moto W.P (Criminal) 66 3.5 230
Transfer Case (Civil) 193 1.32 255
Transfer Petition (Civil) 5 2.78 15
Transfer Petition (Criminal) 3 2.29 8
Writ Petition (Civil) 30 1.87 56
Writ Petition (Criminal) 26 2.09 55
NOTE: Average Judge Minutes to Dispose Case is given by multiplying Average Judge Time Taken
per Hearing (in Judge Minutes) with the Average of Total Order. The Judge time of SLP case-
types are however calculated through the methodology mentioned in Appendix II. Judge minutes
are rounded off to the nearest minute.
Table 3: Three-year Average number of Filings by Case-type

Three Year
Case Type 2013 2014 2015
Average
Arbitration Petition 45 38 41 41
Civil Appeal 1585 1283 1453 1440
Contempt Petition (Civil) 379 382 519 427
Contempt Petition (Criminal) 8 3 4 5
Criminal Appeal 107 107 120 111
Curative Petition (Civil) 209 227 289 242
Curative Petition (Criminal) 77 64 79 73
Original Suit 4 4 3 4
REF. U/A 317(1) 1 0 0 0
Review Petition (Civil) 1819 2127 2531 2159
46

Review Petition (Criminal) 729 677 679 695
SLP (Civil) 6020 9677 9920 8539
SLP (Civil) CC 13946 13906 14371 14074
SLP (Criminal) 4211 4030 4525 4255
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP 5198 5112 5385 5232
Special Reference Case 1 0 0 0
Suo-Moto Contempt Pet.
0 1 2 1
(Civil)
Suo-Moto Contempt Pet.
0 0 1 0
(Criminal)
Suo-Moto W.P (Civil) 0 1 1 1
Suo-Moto W.P (Criminal) 0 1 4 2
Transfer Case (Civil) 152 63 137 117
Transfer Case (Criminal) 4 0 5 3
Transfer Petition (Civil) 1708 1727 1734 1723
Transfer Petition (Criminal) 472 427 400 433
Writ Petition (Civil) 1151 1098 866 1038
Writ Petition (Criminal) 243 229 206 226
Total 38072 41216 43373 40882
NOTE: Three-year average of cases rounded off to the nearest case.
Table 4: Total time required to dispose all incoming cases of a particular case-type in a year
Average Judge Number of Number of
Minutes Cases Filed in a Judge Hours
Original Case Type Required to Year (Three- Required to
Dispose of one year average dispose
Case 2013-2015) Incoming cases
Arbitration Petition 41 41 28
Civil Appeal 84 1440 2018
Contempt Petition (Civil) 136 427 967
Criminal Appeal 125 111 231
Curative Petition (Civil) 1 242 4
Original Suit 1484 4 91
REF. U/A 317(1) 1044 0.3 6
Review Petition (Civil) 49 2159 1758
Review Petition (Criminal) 51 695 585
SLP (Civil) NC 14 6693 1603
SLP (Civil) - Civil Appeal 67 1846 2064
SLP (Civil) CC NC 7 199 23
SLP (Civil) CC - SLP (Civil) 11 10953 1921
SLP (Civil) CC - Civil Appeal 42 2922 2064
47

SLP (Criminal) NC 14 3618 818
SLP (Criminal) - Criminal Appeal 67 637 716
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP NC 6 120 12
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP - SLP(Criminal) 12 4657 777
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP - Criminal Appeal 81 1351 1544
Suo-Moto W.P (Criminal) 230 1 6
Transfer Case (Civil) 255 137 498
Transfer Petition (Civil) 15 1734 421
Transfer Petition (Criminal) 8 400 56
Writ Petition (Civil) 56 866 961
Writ Petition (Criminal) 55 206 208
Total Disposal Time for Incoming Cases (in Judge Hours) 19380
NOTE: Number of Judge Hours required to dispose incoming cases is the product in judge hours of
Number of Cases Filed in a Year and Average Judge Minutes required to dispose of one case. The
Number of Cases Filed in a Year for the SLP case types is calculated using the method given in
Appendix II. The last row is the sum of Number of Judge Hours required to dispose incoming
cases for all case-types, which is the Total Disposal Time for Incoming Cases. Average Judge
Minutes are rounded off to the nearest minute and Number of Judge Hours required to dispose
incoming cases is rounded off to the nearest hour.
Table 5: Number of pending cases with zero orders passed by case-type and total judge time
required for disposal
Average
Number of
Judge
Pending Total Judge Hours to
Minutes
Original Case Type Cases with dispose pending cases
required to
Zero with zero orders
dispose one
Orders
case
Arbitration Petition 10 41 7
Civil Appeal 2460 84 3447
Contempt Petition (Civil) 281 136 637
Criminal Appeal 103 125 214
Curative Petition (Civil) 51 1 1
Review Petition (Civil) 507 49 413
Review Petition (Criminal) 133 51 112
SLP (Civil) NC 3929 14 941
SLP (Civil) - Civil Appeal 1083 67 1212
SLP (Civil) CC NC 125 7 14
SLP (Civil) CC - SLP (Civil) 6897 11 1210
SLP (Civil) CC - Civil Appeal 1840 42 1300
SLP (Criminal) NC 424 14 96
48

SLP (Criminal) - Criminal Appeal 75 67 84
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP NC 18 6 2
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP - SLP(Criminal) 609 12 119
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP - Criminal Appeal 177 81 237
Suo-Moto W.P (Criminal) 2 230 8
Transfer Case (Civil) 353 255 1498
Transfer Petition (Civil) 183 15 45
Transfer Petition (Criminal) 96 8 12
Writ Petition (Civil) 266 56 246
Writ Petition (Criminal) 31 55 28
Total 19692 11883
NOTE: Total Judge Hours to dispose pending cases with zero orders is the product in judge
hours of Number of Pending Cases with Zero Orders and Average Judge Minutes required
to dispose of one case. Average Judge Minutes required to dispose one case is rounded off
to the nearest minute and Total Judge Hours to dispose pending cases with Zero Orders is
rounded off to the nearest hour.
Table 6: Number of pending cases with one or more orders passed by case-type and total judge
time required for disposal
Total Judge
Number of Cases Average Number
Average Judge Hours to Dispose
Pending with of Hearings Left
Original case-type Minutes required of Cases with
One or More to Dispose of
for one hearing One or More
Orders Passed Case
Orders Passed
Arbitration Petition 31 1 10 5
Civil Appeal 2433 2.38 43 4182
Contempt Petition (Civil) 309 2.29 69 818
Criminal Appeal 476 2.43 38 728
Curative Petition (Civil) 71 2 109 2
Original Suit 34 5.1 273 316
REF. U/A 317(1) 3 1 47 14
Review Petition (Civil) 604 2.73 50 1291
Review Petition (Criminal) 186 1.92 8 295
SLP (Civil) NC 7473 2 17 3284
SLP (Civil) - Civil Appeal 5545 0.08 6 4042
SLP (Civil) CC NC 1058 1.64 6 643
SLP (Civil) CC - SLP (Civil) 8487 1.79 14 3481
SLP (Civil) CC - Civil Appeal 6458 2.81 8 7382
SLP (Criminal) NC 2379 2.08 15 835
SLP (Criminal) - Criminal
1311 0.77 5 845
Appeal
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP NC 397 1.56 6 187
49

2416 0.77 17 738
SLP(Criminal)
3458 1.13 66 1568
Criminal Appeal
Suo-Moto W.P (Criminal) 1 2 193 2
Transfer Case (Civil) 59 3.9 5 740
Transfer Petition (Civil) 1650 1 3 145
Transfer Petition (Criminal) 307 1.77 30 31
Writ Petition (Civil) 911 2.89 26 1303
Writ Petition (Criminal) 174 1.79 10 137
Total 42800 33018
Time Taken to Dispose pending cases with no orders (Table 5) 11883
Total Disposal Time for Pending Cases 44900
NOTE: Total Judge Hours to Dispose of Cases with One or More Orders Passed is the product
in judge hours of Average Number of Hearings Left to Dispose of Case, Average Judge Minutes
required for one hearing and Number of Cases Pending with One or More Orders Passed.
Average Judge Minutes required for one hearing is rounded off to the nearest minute and Total
Judge Hours to Dispose of Cases with One or More Orders Passed is rounded off to the nearest
hour. The last row is the sum of Total Judge Hours to dispose all cases of all case types which
is the Total Disposal Time for Pending cases.
50

APPENDIX II
Special Leave Petition Conversions
SLPs are of two types, civil and criminal. In case notice is issued the SLP might be converted into
an appeal (civil appeal or criminal appeal). There is usually a limitation of 90 days for filing an
SLP. In case it is filed beyond this date, an application seeking condonation of delay is filed and
the case is listed with the case-type of SLP (Civil) CC or SLP (Criminal) CRLMP. This case type
is converted to SLP (Civil) if delay is condoned. Similarly, the case type SLP (Civil) is converted
to the case type Civil Appeal if the leave to appeal is granted.
The average judge time taken at each stage of the conversion cycle of an SLP is different. Further,
there is a large difference in the number of hearings between a “converted” SLP and a “non-
converted” SLP. Since the case status page of the SCI has information about the case type and
number to which a case has been converted, the case status data-set allows us to track these
conversions, and to find the average number of orders required for each stage of conversion. For
example, as Table 7 shows, an SLP (Civil) takes 3.95 hearings if it is converted (case-type: SLP
(Civil) - CA) and 1.79 hearings (case-type: SLP (Civil) NC) if it is not converted.
Further, the fact that non-converted case types are listed only on Mondays and Fridays (admission
days) allows us to distinguish between the average hearing times of a converted case and the
average hearing times for a non-converted case. For example, as Table 8 shows, the average judge
time for non-converted SLP on admission days is 482 judge seconds while that for SLP civil 1375
judge seconds on other working days (regular days).
Table 7: Average Number of Orders for converted and not converted SLPs
Case Type Average Orders
SLP (Civil) NC 1.79
SLP (Civil) - Civil Appeal 3.95
SLP (Civil) CC NC 1.22
SLP (Civil) CC - SLP (Civil) 1.68
SLP (Civil) CC - Civil Appeal 3.07
SLP (Criminal) NC 1.79
SLP (Criminal) - Criminal Appeal 4.36
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP NC 1.15
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP - SLP(Criminal) 1.9
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP - Criminal Appeal 4.76
To account for the variance in disposal times of not-converted and converted SLPs, we must
consider them as separate case-types. This means we must include 8 “converted” SLP case-types
separately in our analyses. We have labelled these with a hyphen after the original case-type
followed by the converted case-type. SLP(Civil) CC - Civil Appeal, denotes a case which was
originally filed as an SLP(Civil) CC and then converted into a Civil Appeal. The not-converted
case-types are marked as NC. SLP(Civil) NC is a civil SLP for which the leave to appeal was not
51

granted. Since all of these case-types have different average judge times, we need to separately
calculate the disposal time required for all of them.
Table 8: Judge Hearing time for SLPs
Judge Time (judge seconds)
Case Type Admission Days Regular Days

SLP(C) CC 336 1375
SLP(C) 482 1464
SLP(Cr) 455 1445
SLP(Cr) CRLMP 317 1258
If a matter is not converted then Disposal Time = AHNC * Avg(Jt[Ct](NC)), where AHNC is the
average number of hearings for that case-type; Jt[Ct](NC) is the judge time required for each
hearing for that case-type on admission days. If a matter is converted then, Disposal time =
Disposal Time(Not-converted) + ( (AHC- AHNC) * Avg(Jt[Ct](C)), where AHC is the average
number of hearings for the case-type to which this case-type is converted, Jt[Ct](C) is the Judge
time required for each hearing of the case-type on regular days.
For all converted case-types, the total disposal time is calculated by multiplying the average
disposal time with the average number of incoming cases. The average number of incoming cases
is calculated by multiplying the total number of cases of that case-type that were filed with the
conversion ratio. The conversion ratios depict the average ratio of cases which are
converted/unconverted in any given conversion case type. For example, a conversion ratio of 0.21
in the SLP(Civil) - Civil Appeal case type signifies that 21% of all SLP(Civil) cases are converted
into Civil Appeals. Conversion ratio is given by dividing the Number of cases of the case-type
with “Converted” tag by the total number of cases of that case type. Since the conversion ratios
change over time, we have taken the conversion ratio for all cases from 2009-2013, to account for
recent change. The years 2014 and 2015 have been deliberately excluded, as many cases from
these years are still pending and may get converted in the future. The conversion ratios are given
in Table 9 below. The total incoming cases for SLPs along with the calculation of total disposal
time is given in Appendix I Table 4. The total pending cases for SLPs along with the calculation
of total disposal time is given in Appendix I Table 5 and Table 6.
Table 9: Conversion Ratios for converted and not converted SLPs
Case Type Conversion Ratio
SLP (Civil) NC 0.78383
SLP (Civil) - Civil Appeal: 0.21616
SLP (Civil) CC NC 0.01412
SLP (Civil) CC - SLP(Civil) 0.77823
SLP (Civil) CC-Civil Appeal 0.20764
SLP (Criminal) NC 0.85024
52

SLP (Criminal) - Criminal Appeal 0.14976
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP NC 0.02296
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP - SLP(Criminal) 0.7574
SLP (Criminal) CRLMP - Criminal Appeal 0.21963
53

APPENDIX III
Time- Deficiency Analysis
Table 10: Time deficiency in the ideal efficiency model
Notati Total (in
Particulars Source Sub total
on hours)
Total judge time required by the SCI for hearing and disposing
A1 Table 4 19380
incoming cases in a year (in hours)
SCI calendar
B1 Number of working days of the SCI 179
2016
B2 Number of hearing hours per day of the SCI SCI rules 4.5
B3 Number of Judges in the SCI in 2016 SCI website 26.46
Total judge time available for hearing cases on all working days
B4 B1*B2*B3 21314
(in hours)
SC calendar
B5 Vacation bench days in 2016 34
2016
B6 Number of Judges sitting in the vacation Bench SC Circular 2
B7 Total judge time available during vacation days (in hours) B5* B6 *B2 306
B8 Total judge time available B4+B8 21620
C3 Total time surplus/ deficit (in hours) from incoming cases B9-A1 2239
Table 11: Time deficiency in the actual efficiency model

Notati Total (in
Particulars Source Sub total
on hours)
Total judge time required by the SCI for hearing and disposing
A1 Table 4 19380
incoming cases in a year (in hours)
Total judge time (in hours) from 28th January 2016 to 5th
G1 Dataset 16455
December 2016
SC calendar
H1 Total working days from 28th January 2016 to 5th December 2016 155
2016
Total ideal judge hours by working days from 28th January 2016
H2 H1*B2*B3 18455
to 5th December 2016
Total vacation bench day from 28th January 2016 to 5th December SC calendar
H3 32
2016 2016
H4 Total ideal judge hours for vacation days H4*B6*B7 288
Total ideal judge hours from 28th January 2016 to 5th December
H5 H2+H4 18743
2016
I1 Judicial Efficiency % G1/H5*100 87.79
Working Days from 1st to 27th January 2016 and 6th to 31st SC calendar
J1 24
December 2016 2016
J2 Total ideal judge hours by working data J1*B2*B3 2858
Vacation bench days from 1st to 27th January 2016 and 6th to 31st SC calendar
J3 2
December 2016 2016
J4 Total ideal judge hours for vacation days J3*B6*B7 18
Total ideal hours from 1st to 27th January 2016 and 6th to 31st
J5 J2+J4 2876
December 2016
54

Total actual hours from 1st to 27th January 2016 and 6th to 31st
J6 J5*I1/100 2525
December 2016
Approximate actual hours spent in court hearing cases in 2016 ( in

K1 G1+J6 18980
hours)
L1 Total time surplus/ deficit K1-A1 (401)
Table 12: Calculating total time deficiency and congestion in the Supreme Court
Notati
Particulars Source Sub total Total
on
C3 Total time surplus / deficit ( in hours) from incoming cases C3 2239
Total Judge Time required for hearing and disposing all pending
D1 Table 6 49900
cases (in hours)
E1 Total time deficiency (in hours) for pendency C3-D1 (42661)

(A1+D1)/B8*
E2 Congestion Rate 301.61%
100
F1 Number of ideal years required for clearing pendency D1/C3 20
55

APPENDIX IV
Calculating Break-Even Point for Recommendations
Table 13: Calculating break-even point at sanctioned bench strength.
Notati
on
B9 Sanctioned Bench Strength Footnote 70. 31
Total judge time available at ideal efficiency at sanctioned

M1 B1*B2*B9 24970.5
capacity.
Total time surplus / deficit (in hours) from incoming cases at ideal
M2 M1-A1 5590
efficiency at sanctioned capacity.
Total time surplus / deficit from pending cases at ideal efficiency
M3 M1-D1 (39310)
at sanctioned capacity.
Number of years required for clearing pendency at ideal efficiency
M4 D1/M2 8
at sanctioned capacity.
Total Judge time available in actual Judge model at sanctioned

N1 M1*I1/100 21921
capacity.
Total time surplus / deficit (in hours) from incoming cases actual
N2 N1-A1 2541
Judge model at sanctioned capacity
Total time surplus / deficit from pending cases actual Judge model
N3 N1-D1 (42360)
at sanctioned capacity
Number of years required for clearing pendency at actual
N4 D1/N2 18
efficiency at sanctioned capacity.
Table 14: Calculating number of Judges required to break-even in 5 years

Notati
on
B5 Total ideal Judge-hours per year per Judge B1*B2 805.5
B6 Total actual Judge-hours per court per Judge B6*I1/100 707
Total additional Judges required at ideal efficiency to clear pending (D1/B5)+ 1

O1 50
cases in one year (abs)
Total additional Judges required at ideal efficiency to clear pending
O2 O1/5 10
cases in five years
Total Judges required at actual efficiency to clear pending cases in (D1/B6) + 1

P1 61
one year (abs)
Total additional Judges required at actual efficiency to clear
P2 P1/5 12
pending cases in five years
Table 15: Calculating break-even when vacations are removed

Notati
on
B10 Total number of working days in the court without holidays SCI calendar 240
B2 Number of hearing hours per day of the court B2 4.5
B9 Sanctioned Bench Strength B9 31
Total judge time available for hearing cases at ideal efficiency

Q1 B2*B9*B10 33480
without vacations
56

Q2 Total time surplus/ deficit ( in hours) from incoming cases Q1-A1 14100
Q3 Total time surplus/ deficit in clearing pending cases Q2-D1 (30801)
Number of ideal years required to clear pending cases without
Q4 D2/Q2 3
vacations
Total judge time available for hearing cases at actual efficiency

R1 Q1*I1/100 29392
without vacations at sanctioned strength
R2 Total time surplus/ deficit (in hours) from incoming cases 1-A1 101
R3 Total time surplus/ deficit in clearing pending cases R2-D1 (34889)
Number of years required to clear pending cases without
R4 D1/R2 4
vacations, at sanctioned strength.
Table 16: Calculating break-even with 50% SLP conversion rates

Notati
on
Total judge time required for hearing and disposing incoming cases
A3 Dataset 16848
in a year with 50% admission rates)
S1 Total judge time available at ideal efficiency B8 24970.5

S2 Total time surplus/ deficit ( in hours) from incoming cases S1-A4 8122
S3 Total time surplus/ deficit in clearing pending cases S2-D1 (36778)
Number of ideal years required for clearing pendency, with 50%
S4 D2/S2 6
SLP admission rates
T1 Total judge time available in actual Judge model N1 21921

T2 Total time surplus/ deficit ( in hours) from incoming cases T1-A4 5073
T3 Total time surplus/ deficit for clearing pending cases T2-D1 (39827)
Number of years required for clearing pendency at actual
T4 D1/T2 9
efficiency, with 50% SLP admission rates
Table 17: Calculating break-even if future SLP’s are disallowed

Notati
on
Total judge time required for hearing and disposing incoming cases
A4 A1/3600 7837
in a year without SLPs (in hours)
S1 Total judge time available in Ideal Judge model B8 21314

S2 Total time surplus/ deficit (in hours) from incoming cases S1-A4 13477
S3 Total time surplus/ deficit in clearing pending cases S2-D1 (31424)
S4 Number of ideal years required for clearing pendency D1/S2 3
T1 Total judge time available in actual Judge model K1 18980

T2 Total time surplus/ deficit (in hours) from incoming cases T1-A4 11143
T3 Total time surplus/ deficit in clearing pending cases T2-D1 (33758)
Number of years required to clearing pendency at actual efficiency
T4 D1/T2 4
without future SLPs
57

Rahul Hemrajani: A Temporal Analysis of The Supreme Court of India's Workload

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Rahul Hemrajani: A Temporal Analysis of The Supreme Court of India's Workload

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Rahul Hemrajani: A Temporal Analysis of The Supreme Court of India's Workload

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

A Temporal Analysis of the Supreme Court of India's Workload

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

workload of 21 High Courts in India.12

Backlog’ (Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy 2015) <https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/reports/2015/10/1/consultation-

Courts and Subordinate Courts’ in Narasappa and Vidyasagar (n 10).

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

make accurate inferences about the court’s congestion, capacity or efficiency.15

Methodological Questions’ (2011) 7(1) Utrecht Law Review 66, 69.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

based policy making.

II. Existing Time and Work Studies on Courts

studies of courts however have been rare.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

of its working efficiency.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

considerable demands on judges.23 Further, manually maintaining time data is particularly

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

III. The Hearing Time Data-Set

A. Mapping the Duration of a Case Hearing in the SCI

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

when the court usually hears “admission” cases.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

duration of each case, in each courtroom, for each day.32

B. Populating the Dataset

status, advocates involved in the case and subject matter.33

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

Hearing Time dataset, that we have used for our analysis.35

on the display board.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

especially on miscellaneous days, we have not changed this data.

IV. Workload Analysis of the Supreme Court

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

get “disposal time” for each type of case.

“available time” in the SCI.

of pending cases or “break-even point”.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

makes it inconsistent and unreliable for our purpose.40

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

since we do not have any corresponding time-data.43

A. Judge-Time required for each Hearing

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

the total number of hearings in a given case.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

number of orders taken to dispose any given case-type.47

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

C. Disposal Time for each Case Type

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

account for this difference, we consider them as separate case types.49

of any case is 35 judge minutes.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761

one - which gets transferred to the pending docket.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3417761