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Sonam Wangchuk’s Supreme Court hearing mirrors pattern of delay in habeas corpus pleas
A 2020 empirical study analysing 286 reported SC judgments found that, on average, it took 953 days from the date of detention to the final disposal of a habeas corpus petition.
Wangchuk was detained on September 26, 2025, following protests in Leh over statehood and constitutional safeguards for the region. (Express Photo)
The repeated adjournments in the Supreme Court hearing on the habeas corpus plea filed by Ladakh activist Sonam Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali J Angmo, challenging his detention under the National Security Act (NSA), have drawn sharp criticism. Wangchuk’s preventive detention was revoked on March 14, two days before a hearing in the Supreme Court, which had indicated that the 25th hearing in the plea would be the final one in the matter. Yet data shows that such delays are in line with broader trends.
A 2020 study shows that, on average, a habeas corpus petition takes one year and five months to be decided at the Supreme Court. The study noted that this is often long enough for the detention itself to run its course, leaving, in its words, “little meaning in calling it a ‘remedy’… too little and too late.”
Wangchuk was detained on September 26, 2025, following protests in Leh over statehood and constitutional safeguards for the region. Angmo filed the petition on October 3, 2025, saying his detention was meant to silence dissent.
A 2020 empirical study by advocate Shrutanjaya Bharadwaj, supported by the Thakur Family Foundation, analysed 286 reported Supreme Court judgments, out of which 63 pertained to preventive detention between 2000 and 2019. It found that the judicial process often outlasts the very detention it seeks to challenge.
On average, it took 953 days—over 2.6 years—from the date of detention to final disposal of a habeas corpus petition. Even counting only the time a case remained before the Supreme Court, the average was 528 days, i.e., one year and five months.
In 63.49 per cent of the cases, the time taken exceeded the maximum period of detention, which is usually six months to a year. In about 36 per cent of the cases, the delay at the Supreme Court alone crossed this limit, which the study says “frustrates the point of the appeal or petition”. The Supreme Court has, thus, the report says, “played a significant role in rendering habeas corpus proceedings meaningless.”
On average, the detainees spent 344 days in custody before their cases were decided, including about 111 days while the matter was pending in the Supreme Court. Even when the court later found the detention illegal, relief often came late. In 20 such cases, detainees had already spent about 278 days—around nine months—in custody before being released, including around 95 days while their cases were pending before the apex court.
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Similar pattern in Madras HC too
A follow-up 2024 study of 7,448 habeas corpus petitions in the Madras High Court between 2000 and 2022 shows similar patterns. The high court took an average of 141 days to decide a petition, by which time detainees had already spent about 181 days in custody.
In 87.9 per cent of the petitions, around 6,547 cases, the high court ultimately held the detention illegal. However, detainees had already spent an average of 182 days in custody before release.
In 30 such cases, the detention period had expired before the court could decide the petition, with an average disposal time of 368 days.
In 722 cases, the government revoked the detention order before the court ruled. The study notes that such revocations can “frustrate the judicial process”, allowing the executive to “get away with potentially illegal detentions without accountability”.
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