Supreme Court Review 2024

The end of the year provides us at the Supreme Court Observer an opportunity to reflect on the Court’s activity over the past 12 months. As 2024 nears its close, we have compiled our list of the top 10 judgements for the year. These decisions, in our view, stand out for their significant political, economic and social impact.

It has been an eventful year for the Court (almost 1000 judgements), and, as a consequence, for the SCO. As you can imagine, identifying just 10 landmark judgements from the Court’s huge output was not straightforward. Our guiding light while putting together this list was ‘impact’: we filtered the set of judgements through the lens of the effect they could potentially have on large and critical constituencies such as taxpayers, homeowners, voters and minorities.

Some of the teams picks in our top 10 judgements from 2024 were unanimous (hello electoral bonds and sub-classification) while others were less clearcut (how to judge the impact of the AMU decision until the identity of another institution is litigated?).

This alt list was far easier to put together for our editorial team because it reflects their own preoccupations. Advay is into birds and climate doom, Gauri is all about looking at second-order effects, Manasi has a freshly minted law degree, Sushovan believes in the power of journalism and Spandana is passionate about the rights of women and children. The motif of impact runs through this list, too—these decisions may have not made it to our top 10, but they have the potential to change lives, preserve livelihoods and raise some big questions about our common future.

2024 was a busy year for Constitution Bench decisions. The Court delivered as many as 12 five-, seven- and nine-judge bench cases. Though in 2023 the Court had heard and cleared 18 such cases, 2024 still stands out as a remarkable year for constitution Bench activity, particularly compared to the four decisions in 2022 and three in 2021.

The 12 Constitution Bench decisions this year covered a diverse range of topics. All led by former Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, the judgements dealt with free and fair elections, states powers to make laws and impose taxes, affirmative action and more.

This article compiles all the Constitution Bench cases of 2024 and highlights the key parts of the Court’s decisions.

“Though the pendency has swelled enormously in the past three years due to Covid-19, the Apex Court has endeavoured to hear as many matters as could be possible during the post Covid period,” the Supreme Court assured in its latest Annual Report.

At a first glance, the number of pending cases at the end of each of the last 10 years, this may not look true. The pendency figure skyrocketed by almost 20,000 from 2019 to 2022. The upward trend continued to hold in 2023 and 2024. But the rate of growth slowed down in 2023, the first full year since 2020 when the Court’s functioning was not impeded by the pandemic. In our 2023 pendency review, we had struck a tone of hope: while the yearly increase in pendency in the years from 2019 through to 2022 averaged around 5000 cases, the jump from 2022 to 2023 was less than 2000. The rate of increase stayed steady last year: 2024 closed with about 2300 more pending cases than 2023.

Recently, Claudia Salomon, the first woman President of the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Court of Arbitration visited India. While here, she noted that  India would first need to be recognised as an “arbitration-friendly” jurisdiction if it has to become a “global arbitration hub”. Referring to the 2021 Survey of International Arbitration conducted by the Queen Mary University of London, she highlighted three key factors for a country to be seen as arbitration-friendly:

1. greater support for arbitration by the local courts and judiciary;
2. increased neutrality and impartiality of the local legal system; and
3. a better track record in enforcing agreements to arbitrate and arbitral awards.

In the last decade, India has been keen to position itself as a global arbitration hub. The Modi Government has spoken about promoting arbitration and other ADR mechanisms. Parliament has amended the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 several times in attempts to bring the legislation in line with global trends. The 2019 amendments to the Act relaxed the rule prescribing a 12-month timeframe for awards in international commercial arbitration. Most recently, a 2024 amendment bill proposes to further promote institutional arbitration by defining an “arbitral institution” and enhancing its powers.

The judges of the Supreme Court, too, have previously spoken about the steps that need to be taken for India to become an arbitration hub. The Court’s judgements in the last couple of years reflect its appreciation of the factors laid out in the Queen Mary study. In 2023, for instance, Constitution Benches recognised the Group of Companies Doctrine and held that unstamped arbitration agreements were not void.

The message was similarly strong in 2024. Despite a case in which the Court used its curative powers to set aside an arbitral award against a government-owned entity, it would be fair to say that benches had a pro-arbitration stance while ruling on party autonomy, equality and enforceability. In several cases, the Court limited the interference of Indian courts in foreign arbitral awards and encouraged the government to be a more responsible commercial player

Here’s a rundown of the Supreme Court’s key arbitration judgements in 2024.

Last year marked a noticeable shift in the Supreme Court’s approach to bail when it came to special criminal legislations like the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA). The Court increasingly leaned on the principle of personal liberty under Article 21, balancing it against the rigid statutory conditions for bail.

Under the PMLA, Section 45 imposes twin conditions for bail: the accused must prove they are not prima facie guilty and assure the Court they will not commit a crime. These conditions, upheld by a three-judge bench in Vijay Madanlal v Union of India (2022), continued to hold the field. Yet, 2024 saw the Supreme Court soften its stance in several high-profile cases, where it relied on prolonged incarceration and the long road to trial as a factor for granting bail.

In the Bhima Koregaon case, two UAPA-accused were granted bail on the ground of delays in trial and insufficient prima facie evidence. Yet, 2024 was also the year when activist Umar Khalid’s much-anticipated bail petition took an unexpected turn. Despite being listed (but barely heard) throughout 2023, Khalid withdrew his plea early in 2024.

From top politicians to activists, the thread running through these cases was an acknowledgment of the human cost of extended pre-trial detention.

In February 2024, a few weeks before India went to the polls, we at the Supreme Court Observer identified five election-related cases pending before the Supreme Court. Among them, two saw significant developments during the year—the challenge to the Electoral Bonds Scheme and the case concerning the appointment of Election Commissioners.

This year, there were no big developments in other petitions related to the electoral process, such as those addressing electoral freebies, filling parliamentary vacancies, and the eligibility of candidates charged with serious offences.

Beyond the General Election, the Supreme Court also intervened to address an irregularity in the mayoral elections in Chandigarh.

Here’s a closer look at the election-related cases we tracked in 2024.

In 2024, the Supreme Court’s record on environmental cases reflected the inconsistencies in its historical jurisprudence on the subject. Some decisions broadened the constitutional imagination of environmental rights. For instance, in one case, for the first time in 75 years, the Court held that there exists not only a right to a clean and healthy environment under Article 21 but also a right against the adverse effects of climate change. Particular benches also regularly monitored the enforcement of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 (‘EPA’), pollution and deforestation issues in the national capital. A split verdict also pressed for greater transparency in environmental policies on the release of genetically modified crops.

As challenges to an amendment of the Forest (Conservation) Act remain pending, some decisions stood apart for their empathetic consideration of forest lands. For instance, the Court directed state governments to adopt a broad definition of “forest areas.” Notably, the Court also declared sacred groves in Rajasthan as ‘deemed forests’.

However, many decisions were laden with rhetoric and often contradicted by judgements or orders from other benches. For instance, the judgement that ruled for a new climate right also greenlit a major energy project through an endangered bird’s habitat.

Like the past years, the Court also staggered on issues where developmental projects and policies seemed to be pitted against environmental conservation, landing its feet on muddy waters.

In ’Substantive equality revisited’ (2016), Sandra Fredman highlighted that Supreme Courts around the world had embraced the principle of substantive equality in interpreting the right to equality. She wrote that “substantive equality need not be about achieving purely egalitarian outcomes; it should at least in part aim to reduce the gap between the more disadvantaged and the less disadvantaged”. In recent times, the Supreme Court of India appears to have embraced this holistic interpretation.

In 2024, especially, the Court pushed for substantive equality in several judgements. In a significant verdict on affirmative action, it batted in favour of sub-classifications within the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) categories. In another, it called for a revision of prison manuals in various states to curb caste-based segregation in jails.

This push for substantive equality was also visible in judgements that called for the upliftment of persons with disabilities in the country. Notably, the Court also released a Handbook in 2024 to curb the use of ableist language and ensure equality of treatment. The Handbook emphasises that “equality law ought to recognise disability as a relevant characteristic and facilitate a regime of change and accommodation to existing norms.”

In this article, we revisit the Court’s 2024 judgements, which pushed for the recognition of citizens’ equality beyond the contours of ‘sameness.’

In a speech in October this year, then Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud spoke about the “centrifugal” nature of the federal structure after the Court’s decision in S.R. Bommai v Union of India (1994). “In Bommai, the Supreme Court laid great emphasis on preserving the powers of the states. States, it was held, were not mere appendages of the Centre and the Court could not take a route that whittled down the powers of the states,” he said.

The former Chief said that in the last few decades, the Court has “evolved a robust jurisprudential framework on federalism to ensure that state rights are protected, the identity of various communities are fostered and values of representation are promoted.” While pointing out that special provisions in the Constitution exist to give effect to this federal representation, he cited the examples of the Mineral Royalty and the Industrial Alcohol judgements, both delivered by the Constitution Benches led by him.

Though his bench’s decision in the Delhi Alderman case raised some eyebrows, this year, the Court did display this tendency to push for decentralisation. In 2024, the Court recognised states’ power to tax mines and minerals, regulate industrial alcohol, and create sub-classifications within the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories. The Court also upheld the maintainability of the West Bengal Government’s Original Suit against invasive investigations by the CBI.

In 2024, Supreme Court judgements brought clarity to several fuzzy areas around marriage and divorce in India. This included clarifying what made a Hindu marriage legitimate under the Hindu personal laws, whether a widow’s right over her deceased husband’s property sustained after remarriage and the factors to be considered while calculating permanent alimony. The Court also clarified the contours of what types of cases may not be ideal for the grant of divorce by High Courts through ‘irretrievable breakdown of marriage.’ Some of these cases indicated a bend towards a more conservative strain of personal law interpretation while others pointed to a progressive view of gender parity.

In a nation as diverse as ours, the judiciary often finds itself at the crossroads of culture, religion and law. This year exemplified this dynamic, as the Supreme Court wrestled with cases that touched on minority rights and cultural preservation.

To some degree, matters that reach the Supreme Court can be reflective of broader societal trends. India’s secularism accommodates outward displays of religiosity and cultural assertion. Increasingly, however, such displays have been marked by a more menacing tinge. This year, on this front, the Supreme Court emerged as committed to constitutional morality in an environment marked by hot-headedness and polarisation.

In this article, we’ve largely restricted ourselves to cases where religious and cultural rights, as guaranteed in the Constitution, were directly at stake. Of course, there were several headline-grabbing cases, such as the Bilkis Bano convict remission matter, where the religious identity of the parties was the undercurrent in the dispute. Even there, the Court did well to uphold the rights of individuals from minority communities, though in cases like, say, the bulldozer demolitions matter, it was at pains to not look at the issue through a religious lens.

In 2024, the Supreme Court decided several cases to advance child rights jurisprudence in India. From clarifying the application of certain provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act) to tightening the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015 (JJ Act), it laid to rest some confusions that had long bothered litigators. Significantly in a year that saw increased communal polarisation and persecution of minority communities, the Court intervened at important moments to favour children from such communities.

One decision of the Court, however, did raise conflicting thoughts. It highlighted the tension inherent in state paternalism and child autonomy.

In 2024, the Supreme Court exercised its suo moto jurisdiction in 12 cases, the highest ever since its establishment. Suo moto cases are taken up by the Court on its volition. Issues may be brought to the Court’s attention by news reports, academic studies or letters that concerned citizens may write to it. Typically, the Court exercises its suo moto jurisdiction sparingly.

Suo moto powers are exercised in three main ways. First, the Court may take action against a person who disobeys or shows ‘contempt’ towards it. We have not included this kind of suo moto action in this piece, to focus on cases where the Court has used its powers to address what it considers as matters of grave importance. Second the Court may, by its own will, transfer a case to itself or to the lower courts. Finally, it may take cognisance of pressing issues affecting society.

In their chapter in A Qualified Hope (2019), a collection of essays on the Supreme Court’s track record on progressive social change, Marc Galanter and Vasujith Ram describe the exercise of suo moto jurisdiction as the Court’s eagerness “to project itself into the moment of action, to act at the coal face, where the rubber meets the road, liberated from the stylized intermediation of registry, clerks and lawyers, pleadings, motions and appeals, that present matters to the Court in standardized digestible packages.”

This year, the Court appears to have been more eager than usual to “project itself” as an institution ready to answer the burning questions of the day and fulfill its duty as a guardian of judicial integrity. In the first part of this year-end review, we’ll look at the rising instances of suo moto cases. In the second part, we’ll examine the cases the Court considered this year and what they tell us about the Court’s concerns.