No relation between number of judges and disposal rates

In the last ten years, an increase in the number of working Supreme Court judges has not had a significant effect on the Court’s efficiency. In particular, an increase in working strength has not correlated to an (i) increase in disposal or (ii) judgments delivered, nor a decrease in (iii) pendency. In other words an increase in the number of judges has not significantly: increased the number of cases the Court has disposed of; increased the number of judgments the Court has delivered; or decreased the number of cases pending before the Court;

Disposal, judgments delivered and pendency are key metrics for assessing the Court’s workload and efficiency in dealing with the said workload. We can test whether changes in working strength have a significant effect on any one of the three by calculating the correlation coefficient. If increasing working strength significantly increases the number of cases the Court disposes of, we would see a coefficient correlation of greater than or equal to 0.8. Likewise, if decreasing working strength significantly decreases pendency, we would see a correlation coefficient of less than or equal to -0.8

However, we see the following correlation coefficients between working strength and…:

• Disposal: 0.287
• Judgment delivered: -0.504
• Pendency: -0.161

There is no significant correlation between working strength and any of the three variables.

In order to see the visual relationships between working strength and the three variables respectively, please view these graphs.

Data sourced from sci.gov.in/judges