March 2025: Top Court sees a spike in pendency by 952 cases

As the first quarter ended, the Supreme Court closed with 81,394 pending cases on 31 March 2025. In the same month, the Court cleared 5018 cases and received 5618 cases. 

Pendency in March 2025

Figure 1 below traces the pending cases for January, February and March this year. 

As seen in the figure, pendency increased by  952 cases in March as compared to  February 2025. However, pendency in March was lower compared to January by 1051 cases.  

In March, the Court worked for 15 days as the Court broke for a week-long Holi vacation from 10 to 15 March. The Court had a  sitting strength of 32 judges, two less than the sanctioned strength for six working days. This increased to 33 judges after the appointment of Justice Joymalya Bagchi on 18 March.  

Highest March pendency in the last five years

Figure 2 below showcases the number of pending cases in the month of March since 2021.

As seen in the Figure above, there has been a steady rise in the number of pending cases before the Supreme Court over the past five years. Data up to March 2024 was sourced from the Indian Judiciary Annual Reports released by the Supreme Court, while the March 2025 figure was collected from the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG).

From 61,142 cases in March 2020, the pendency has increased to 81,551 cases by March 2025. The pandemic years saw a notable rise in pendency. Pendency had jumped over 9000 cases from 2020 to March 2022.  From March 2022 to March 2023, pendency rose by nearly 8,000 cases. 

However, it must be noted that the counting format changed when former Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud took over in November 2022. The Supreme Court started counting all cases with a Diary Number, including Miscellaneous Applications, Unregistered Matters and Defective Cases as part of its overall case pendency.

Constitution Bench Pendency

Figure 3 depicts the number of Constitution Bench cases pending before the Supreme Court in March 2025. 

As seen in Figure 3, the bulk of Constitution Bench cases are pending before five-judge benches, with 20 main cases and 293 tagged matters. The NJDG has recorded five cases pending before seven-judge benches and 2 cases before nine-judge benches. These numbers have remained constant since February 2025. 

In all categories, the number of tagged matters far exceeds the number of main matters. This reflects the ripple effect that delays in Constitution Bench hearings can have on the broader docket.

5618 cases instituted, 5018 disposed

Figure 4 below shows the number of cases instituted and disposed of by the Supreme Court in March 2025. 

Institution refers to the number of cases filed at the Supreme Court during a particular period of time. Disposal refers to the number of cases cleared by the Court either by dismissing them or by delivering the final judgement in the case. 

In the first quarter of 2025, the Supreme Court demonstrated an overall positive trend in managing its caseload. In both January and February, the number of cases disposed of exceeded the number of new cases instituted. Specifically, in January, the Court disposed of 6235 cases, while 5846 new cases were filed, resulting in a net reduction of 389 cases. February saw an even better margin, with 6304 disposals against 5482 institutions, leading to a net reduction of 822 cases.

March, however, marked a shift in this trend. Although 5618 new cases were instituted, only a slight increase from February, the number of disposals dropped to 5018. This resulted in a net increase of 600 cases in the Court’s docket for that month. The disposal rate stood at 89.32 percent.

The week-long Holi vacation, resulting in fewer working days during the month, could be the reason for this drop in disposal. 

Despite this reversal in March, the picture for the quarter remains encouraging. Across the three months, the Court disposed of more cases than it received. It cleared 17,557 cases and received 16,946 new ones.

Highest institutions and disposals in March since 2019

Figure 5 below shows the number of cases instituted and disposed of by the top court in the month of March since 2019. 

As seen in Figure 5, in 2019, the Court recorded 3377 new cases and disposed of 3090, suggesting a relatively balanced inflow and outflow of matters. However, this balance was significantly disrupted in 2020 when institutions fell to 1649 and disposals to 976. This sharp dip is the result of the COVID-19 crisis on judicial functioning and the constraints on physical hearings and administrative disruptions.

By 2021, a partial recovery is visible, with 2981 cases instituted and 2429 disposed of, indicating a Court still in recovery mode but beginning to regain momentum. The upward trend continued into 2022 and 2023, with institution figures rising to 3240 and 4526, respectively. Disposals also increased to 2762 and 4086. 

In 2024, the number of instituted cases climbed further to 4656, although disposals slightly dipped to 3926. The trend peaked in 2025, with the highest figures in the series: 5618 new cases instituted and 5018 disposals. 

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 March 2025, the institution and disposal numbers matched on both platforms. The Justice clock displayed a disposal of one case less than the NJDG.