January 2025: Highest disposal so far in 2024-25 term of SC

January marked the beginning of the Supreme Court’s second term. The Supreme Court Rules, 2013 state that the Court’s first term begins in July after the summer break, and concludes just before the winter break. 

During this month, the Court disposed of more cases than in July and December 2024, the first and last months of the Court’s first term for the year 2024-25. 

Institution refers to the number of cases filed in the Court in a given time frame and disposal refers to the number of cases it clears either by passing a final judgment or dismissing it. 

5846 instituted, 6235 disposed

Figure 1 below shows the number of cases instituted in and disposed of by the top court each month since July 2024. 

Note: The January 2025  data was collected from the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) on 5 February 2025 at 11:40 am 2024 at 10:50 am.

The Court resumed functioning on 2 January after a two-week winter break. In this new term, the Court received 5846 cases (587 more than in December 2024) and disposed of 6235 cases (1787 more than in December 2024). The Court worked for 20 days in January. If we are to calculate the daily average, the Court of 311.75 cases per day. 

In January, the Court functioned with a sanctioned strength of 33 judges for 14 days. Justice C.T. Ravikumar retired on the 5th, leaving the Court with two vacancies. Justice K.V. Chandran was elevated on the 16th. Justice Hrishikesh Roy retired on the 31st, bringing the sitting strength of the Court to 32 judges. 

In July last year, the Court commenced its first term after an eight-week summer break. During its 17 working days that month, the Court had disposed of 6198 cases—the highest last year. In this new term, institution also increased to 5846 cases—the second highest in the 2024-2025 term after July. 

Notably, when Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna assumed office in November last year, he paused regular hearings till January 2025 in a bid to reduce pendency. Simply put, the decision had the effect of prioritising miscellaneous matters which constitute the majority of the Court’s docket. A majority of these cases are disposed of at the admission stage. The decision seemed to have paid off as there was a dip in the pendency in November 2024 and an increase in the disposal rate. The Court cleared 1008 cases more than it did in October 2024. Disposal was reduced to 4448 cases in December, owing to the Court’s winter break. 

Regular hearings resumed in the new year. However, it appears that this did not hinder disposal trends. The Court disposed of 664 more cases in January 2025 than it did in November 2024 when regular hearings were paused.  

Most institutions and disposals in the month since 2019

Figure 2 below shows the institution and disposal of cases in January since 2019, the last full year of the Court’s functioning before the pandemic-affected operations from 2020 to 2022. 

As seen in the figure, in January 2019, the Court received 4682 cases and disposed of 3999 cases. Both these figures fell drastically during the pandemic years (2021-2022). While 2021 saw the lowest disposals at 2209, 2022 saw the lowest number of institutions at 2321 cases. 

Since 2022, both institutions and disposals saw an upward trend. While the Court received more cases each year, it also cleared more cases.

In January 2023, the first year after the pandemic, the Court received 4661 cases—almost 50 percent more than in January 2022. In January 2024, the Court received 4964 cases, just 6.29 percent more than in 2023. Finally, in 2025, the Court received 5846 cases, 16.31 percent more than in 2024. 

The Court cleared 5058 cases in January 2023—more than twice as many as it cleared in the same month in 2022.  In 2024, the Court cleared 7 percent more cases than in 2023. In 2025, it cleared 13.3 percent more than the previous year. 

Note: Last year, 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 January 2025, the numbers matched on both platforms with a very minor discrepancy. While both platforms showed an institution of 5846 cases, the Justice Clock displayed a disposal of 6233 cases, two less than the NJDG.