Justice Hima Kohli: Tenure in numbers

On 1 September 2024, Justice Hima Kohli will retire after a three-year tenure at the Supreme Court. Her retirement will reduce the strength of the Court to 33 judges out of the sanctioned strength of 34. More significantly, it will reduce the number of women judges in the Court to two, namely, Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Bela M. Trivedi. 

Justices Kohli, Nagarathna, and Trivedi were appointed on the same day in August 2021. Their elevation was a historic moment for the Supreme Court. It was the first time the Court would have four women judges. At the time of their elevation, Justice Indira Banerjee was the only woman judge.  

Over three years, Justice Kohli was a part of the Constitution Benches that heard the plea for marriage equality, the Shiv Sena dispute in Maharashtra, and the control of services in the National Capital Territory of Delhi. She also sat on the Division Bench which reprimanded Patanjali Ayurveda for publishing misleading advertisements. (more on Justice Kohli’s notable judgements). 

In this article, we look at Justice Kohli’s tenure in numbers. She authored 40 judgements and was part of 208 benches.*

Figure 1 plots the expected tenure of all sitting judges of the Supreme Court. At three years, Justice Kohli’s was among the shortest tenures of sitting judges. 

Notably, Justice Kohli was part of a group of appointments made during Chief Justice N.V. Ramana’s tenure. She was appointed alongside eight other judges: Justices A.S. Oka, Vikram Nath, J.K. Maheshwari, B.V. Nagarathna, C.T. Ravikumar, M.M. Sundresh, Bela Trivedi, and P.S. Narasimha. Three of them are expected to go on to serve  as the Chief Justice of India. Among the nine appointees, Justice Kohli had the shortest tenure. The highest being Justice Narasimha (6.75 years).

Number of judgements authored

Figure 2 shows the total number of judgements authored by sitting judges of the Supreme Court. The bar in dark blue plots the total number of judgements authored by each judge. The bar in yellow represents the average number of judgements written each year. 

Justice Kohli authored 40 judgements in her three-year tenure, an average of 13 judgements a year. Of her colleagues who were elevated on the same day, Justice Oka has authored the most judgements so far—213. This is followed by Justices Nath (106), Nagarathna (73), Trivedi (73), Narasimha (55), Ravikumar (45), Maheshwari (41), and Sundresh (40). 

Year-wise breakdown of authorship

Figure 3 gives a breakdown of the number of judgements (yellow) authored by Justice Kohli along with the number of benches (blue) she was a part of. An additional data point of rate of authorship (number of benches where she authored the judgement, expressed in percentage terms) is displayed by the red bar. 

In her first year at the Supreme Court, Justice Kohli authored six judgements and was part of 28 benches, with an authorship rate of 21.42 percent. This lower volume of activity is likely due to her appointment in the last quarter of 2021.

In her second year, she authored 20 judgments and sat on 95 benches, with a steady authorship rate of 21.05 percent. This was her most productive year, in terms of the number of judgements and benches she sat on. 

2023 saw a decline with Justice Kohli authoring nine judgments and participating in 61 benches. Her authorship rate also dropped to 14.75 percent.

In her last working year, Justice Kohli has so far authored five judgments while sitting on 24 benches, with an authorship rate of 20.83 percent. The number may increase as it is common for judges to deliver judgments in their last few working days. 

Subject-matter of judgements 

Of the 40 judgements Justice Kohli authored, 16 cases were criminal matters. This was followed by service (10), narcotics (4), arbitration (3), civil (3), defence (2), property (2), and family (2). 

*as per data collected on 29 August 2024