February 2025: Higher disposal makes a dent in pendency by 1463 cases

February 2025 closed with 80,982 cases pending in the Supreme Court. This is a drop by over 1400 cases as compared to January 2025 where pendency was at 82,445 cases. In February, the Court also disposed of more cases than instituted in the top court. 

Institution refers to the number of cases filed at the Court in a given period and disposal refers to the number of cases the Court clears either by delivering the final judgement or by dismissing the matter. 

Pendency in February 2025

Figure 1 presents a monthly breakdown of pending cases in the Supreme Court for January and February 2025.

The data reveals a decline in the number of pending cases compared to the start of the year. Notably, February marked the second consecutive month of reduced pendency, with both January and February showing lower numbers than their preceding months.

In February, the Court operated with 32 judges and had 19 working days—one day fewer than in January, which had 20 working days.

Interestingly, a decline in pendency was observed in the February of previous years. In February 2024, the number of pending cases dropped by 700 from January 2024, bringing the total to 79,766. The same trend was observed in February 2023, where pendency declined by 218 cases from January 2023. 

Now we will examine the February pendency trends in the Supreme Court over the past five years.

Pendency in last five years 

Figure 2 represents the pendency in February in the past five years starting from 2019. Data up to February 2024 was sourced from the Indian Judiciary Annual Reports released by the Supreme Court, while the February 2025 figure was collected from the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG).

A consistent increase in pendency is evident over the years. In February 2019, the Supreme Court had 57,785 pending cases, which rose to 60,469 cases in February 2020—an increase by 2684 cases. 

The COVID-19 pandemic substantially impacted the pendency docket of the top court. In 2021, pendency increased by 6258 cases and reached 66,727 cases. This is also the highest jump in pendency during the 2019-2025 timeline. By the end of February 2022, there were 70,154 cases pending in the top court.

The pandemic had well and truly blown over by 2023. February 2023 clocked a pendency of 78,182 cases. We do not consider this as the highest jump due to the revised counting methodology adopted by the top court—In November 2022, soon after D.Y. Chandrachud took office as the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court began including all diarised matters—including Miscellaneous Applications, Unregistered Matters, and Defective Cases— in its count. 

In February 2024, pendency increased only by 1167 cases compared to the same month the previous year—the first time where the spike was less than 2000 cases.

In 2025, pendency increased by 1633 cases compared to February 2024—to 80,982 cases.

Constitution Bench pendency 

Figure 3 illustrates the number of Constitution Bench cases pending in the Supreme Court. The donut on the left shows the number of main pending matters whereas the donut on the right shows the tagged pending matters. Tagged matters are cleared once the main matters are decided.

As of February 2025, 27 Constitution Bench cases remain pending before the Supreme Court. That is six less cases than January 2025, where pendency was at 33 cases. Now, there are 20 pending five-judge bench matters (five less than January 2025), five seven-judge matters, and two nine-judge matters (one less than January).

We are unable to explain the reduction in the pendency of five and nine-judge bench matters as no Constitution Bench judgements were delivered in February. Only one Constitution Bench case (a five-judge bench on a court’s power to modify an arbitral award) was heard and reserved for verdict. 

Let’s now separately look at the institution and disposal numbers for February 2025.

5482 instituted, 6304 disposed

As seen in Figure 4, the Court disposed of 6235 cases in January 2025—more than 389 than were instituted. 

In February 2025, the healthy disposal streak continued where the Court disposed of 6304 cases, more than 822 than were instituted. The month also saw fewer institutions (364 less) and more disposals (69) as compared to January 2025. 

Notably, the Court functioned at 32 judges, two less than the sanctioned strength of 34 judges prescribed by Parliament. There were no retirements or appointments in February. The last appointment was of Justice K.V. Chandran in January 2025. 

Further, five of the sitting judges were occupied in hearing the Constitution Bench case for three days. Moreover, there was only a single public holiday in February. 

If we were to calculate, the Court disposed of an average of 331.8 cases a day in its 19 working days in February. 

Highest institutions and disposals since 2019

As shown in the figure, the Supreme Court received 3809 cases in February 2019 and disposed of 4053 cases. In February 2020, case filings increased to 3879, while disposals dropped to 3080.

Both figures declined in 2021, marking the lowest number of disposals recorded in February between 2019 and 2025. By then, the COVID-19 pandemic had been ongoing for nearly a year. 

In 2022, disposals saw a slight increase (2667), but case filings dropped (2720). This was also the year where case institutions were at the lowest in our 2019-2025 timeline. 

After 2022, both institutions and disposals rose as the Court resumed normal functioning in the post-pandemic era. In February 2023, the Court received 4361 cases—1641 more than in February 2022. The shift in counting methodology could account for this increase. In February 2024, there were 1343 more cases instituted in February 2023; disposals in the month also increased 1102 compared to the previous year. 

The upward trend continued this year, with February 2025 seeing the most institutions and disposals for the month since 2019. 

Note: In our monthly tracking of institution and disposal at the Supreme Court, we often found discrepancies in the data between the National Judicial Data Grid and the Justice Clock. The Justice Clock, hosted on the Supreme Court’s website, provides real-time updates, while the NJDG, managed by the Department of Justice, collects data from the Supreme Court, High Courts, and subordinate courts.

For February 2025, there was only a negligible discrepancy. While both platforms displayed an institution of 5482 cases, the Justice Clock displayed a disposal of 6305 cases, just one more than the NJDG