Justice Ajay Rastogi: Rate of Judgement Authorship

Justice Ajay Rastogi retired on June 17th, 2023. He served a tenure of 4.5 years at the Supreme Court. With his retirement, the strength of the Supreme Court is now at 32 judges. 

In Figure 1, the x-axis represents three values—Judgements (Green), Benches (Blue) and the Authorship Rate (Yellow). The authorship rate tells us the number of judgements he wrote each year out of the benches he was a part of. 

In 2018 (his first year at the SC), Justice Rastogi was part of 45 benches and authored 18 judgements. This relatively low number of judgements can be attributed to his appointment towards the end of the year in November. During this short period, he authored 39.1% of the judgements per bench. 

In 2019, which was his full year at the SC, his presence on benches and authorship drastically increased. He authored 45 judgements and was a part of 111 benches which amounts to an authorship rate of 40.5%. This was the highest number of judgements in any year during his tenure.  

In 2020, during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, he authored 25 judgements from the 100 Benches that he was a part of—25% of the judgements per bench. His bench activity did not see a serious drop.  

However, in 2021, his overall authorship and bench activity took a hit—12 judgements and 65 benches. He had an authorship rate of only 18.4%. This can be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic affecting the functioning of the Court. 

In 2022, as normalcy returned, there was a steady increase in Justice Rastogi’s judgement authorship as well. He authored 42 judgements and was a part of 144 benches that year with a rate of 29.1%. This was the highest bench activity in any year during his tenure. 

In 2023, he served for close to 6 months before his retirement. During this time, he authored 16 judgements and was a part of 41 benches with an authorship rate of 39%. 

Overall, he was a part of 506 benches and authored 158 judgements. The average authorship rate during his whole tenure was 31.5%. 

*data collected from Manupatra and the Supreme Court website.