Why Supreme Court pendency grew to 92,000 despite record disposal in 2025

The Case Clearance Rate (CCR) – the percentage of cases disposed of relative to the number of cases filed in a given year – from the last five years offers a clear picture of this productivity paradox.

The trajectory of these numbers tells the story of four Chief Justices of India (CJIs) who deployed varying strategies to unclog the docket.

To understand these figures, one must distinguish between “registered” and “unregistered” cases. A registered case is a petition that is defect-free and ready to be listed before a bench for hearing. An unregistered case is one filed in the registry but containing technical defects – such as unpaid court fees or missing documents – that must be cured before it can formally enter the judicial stream.

The trajectory of these numbers tells the story of four Chief Justices of India (CJIs) who deployed varying strategies to unclog the docket.

Pandemic slump, Lalit intervention

The year 2020 can be written off as an outlier. As the Covid-19 pandemic forced the court to switch to virtual hearings for the first time, the CCR dropped to 78.77 per cent. The recovery began in 2021, but the real structural shifts commenced in late 2022.

Justice U U Lalit, who served a short tenure of 73 days between August and November, inherited a court struggling with the post-pandemic backlog. Despite the brevity of his term, CJI Lalit introduced a rigorous listing mechanism. He carved out distinct time slots for fresh matters and long-pending regular hearings, ensuring that old cases did not get buried under new filings. His tenure set the stage for a more vigorous cleanup.

Chandrachud era: Transparency and technology

The data shows a massive spike in the CCR to 127.34 per cent in 2022. This statistical anomaly was largely driven by CJI D Y Chandrachud’s decision shortly after assuming office that pendency figures must include all diarised matters, including unregistered and defective ones, to present a true picture of the backlog.

Consequently, the disposal of unregistered cases jumped from 2,352 in 2021 to 16,258 in 2022.

During his two-year tenure, the court leveraged technology to streamline processes. The SC-JUDICARE (Judicial Disposal through Case Management and Resource Efficiency) project launched in June 2023 utilised automation to classify and manage thousands of pending cases, grouping matters with similar legal issues to ensure they were heard together.

The court also constituted special benches to tackle specific categories like death penalty references and land acquisition. In July 2024, a “Special Lok Adalat” week was organised, which facilitated the disposal of over 1,000 cases. These initiatives kept the CCR hovering near 98 per cent in 2024, even as filings crossed the 60,000 mark.

CJI Khanna: Unclogging the docket

Following CJI Chandrachud, Justice Sanjiv Khanna took the helm for six months, between November 2024 and May 2025. His tenure was marked by a distinct shift in strategy aimed at “admission matters” – fresh cases that often clog the system before they are even admitted for detailed arguments.

To address this, CJI Khanna temporarily halted the listing of “regular matters” – older cases requiring lengthy hearings – on Wednesdays and Thursdays, dedicating these days to clearing the backlog of fresh miscellaneous matters.

A report by the Supreme Court’s Centre for Research and Planning (CRP) titled Unclogging the Docket details the impact of this period. According to the report, the CRP was tasked by CJI Khanna with identifying “short, infructuous and old matters” that had remained unlisted. The team identified approximately 16,000 such cases. “Proactively identifying and listing for disposal of these cases,” stated the report, “has helped the bench channelise and focus judicial time and energy on cases which need holistic adjudication.”

This targeted approach helped maintain high disposal rates in the early months of 2025, despite the growing inflow of cases.

Surge in filings in CJI Gavai’s tenure

CJI B R Gavai assumed office in May 2025 and served till November 23. His tenure witnessed a massive surge in case institution.

In 2025, the total number of cases filed reached an unprecedented 75,414. Notably, the institution of unregistered cases spiked to 23,033, more than double the previous year.

As a result, despite the court disposing of 65,536 cases in 2025 – the highest absolute number in the last five years – the CCR dropped to 86.90 per cent. During CJI Gavai’s tenure, the total pendency crossed the 90,000 mark for the first time since 1993 – when the method of calculating pendency had been changed.

While CJI Gavai did not adopt any initiatives to specifically target pendency like his immediate three predecessors, the disposal numbers remained robust, indicating that the benches were functioning at high capacity. The drop in the clearance rate was due to case filings growing faster than the disposal.

After CJI Surya Kant took over towards the end of November, the gap between the number of cases instituted and those disposed further ballooned in December. However, that is not surprising – because the court goes on a ten-day winter break every December, the pendency figure inflates at that time every year.

With the court becoming more accessible through e-filing and virtual hearings, the intake of cases continues rising exponentially. This poses a significant challenge for the incumbent CJI Surya Kant – who announced upon taking office that reducing the pendency and coming up with a “unified national policy for disposing pending matters” would be one of his priorities.