Pendency reduces by over 650 cases in November 2024

November 2024 closed with 82,347 cases pending in the Supreme Court, 654 less than the figure for October 2024. This is the second consecutive month where we noticed a downward trend in pendency numbers. In October, pendency had reduced by 99 cases compared to September.

Figure 1 displays a month-wise breakdown of cases pending before the Supreme Court. Each figure highlights the pendency numbers at the end of each month. 

November 2024 marks the fifth time this year where pendency figures reduced compared to the previous month. The other months were February (reduced by over 700 cases compared to the previous month), July (by 900 cases), August (by 400 cases) and October (by 99 cases). 

Interestingly, the steepest drop in pendency occurred in July 2024, with the Court clearing 968 cases. Pendency had hit an annual high , in June 2024, partly due to the Court being closed for summer vacation for that entire month. Since July 2024, there have only been small fluctuations in the pendency figure. 

Pendency was at its lowest in February 2024, which was the first time when it fell below the starting figure recorded in January 2024. The second and the last time this occurred was in March 2024—by 335 cases. 

A contributing factor to the highest pendency drop since July would be the new Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna’s decision to prioritise listing of miscellaneous cases (freshly filed and after-notice matters) instead of regular matters. A major chunk of pending cases in the Supreme Court are miscellaneous matters. As per the recently published Supreme Court Annual Report, which has figures until August 2024, there are 22,868 regular matters pending in the top court. This indicates that roughly 60,000 cases in the Court are miscellaneous matters. 

While this downward trend is encouraging, the week-long Christmas break from 25 December may cause an upward spike.

Figure 2 illustrates the number of Constitution Bench cases pending in the Supreme Court. The donut on the left shows the number of main pending matters whereas the donut on the right shows the tagged matters pending in the Court. Tagged matters are cleared once the main matters are decided. 

Last month, we reported that there was a visible reduction in Constitution Bench pendency in the top court. This was due to a series of Constitution Bench decisions that came out in 2024. Notably, five Constitution Bench judgements were delivered in the first week of November 2024, in the final few working days of the previous Chief Justice, D.Y. Chandrachud. Among them were one nine- and seven-judge bench matter each and three five-judge bench matters. 

However, we observed that Constitution Bench pendency in five- and seven-judge matters has not changed since reported figures for October 2024. However, nine-judge bench pendency has reduced by one case. Presumably, the data has not been updated in its entirety. 

Tracking pendency with two data sets 

There seem to be two different web pages with National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) data on Supreme Court pendency. Initially, we referred to this portal which seems to have been “reviewed and updated” on 13 November 2024. One can reach this page by going directly to the Department of Justice website (https://doj.gov.in/the-national-judicial-data-grid-njdg/) and clicking on the link provided for the Supreme Court NJDG at the bottom of the screen.

The other page, which we have used for the data analysis here, is the portal one is redirected to from the Supreme Court website. The URL states that the website was “reviewed and updated” on 5 October 2024: 

We’ve referred to the page “reviewed and updated” on 5 October instead of 13 November because we found that the latter displays at least some decided cases as pending matters. For instance, here’s the list that appears on the 13 November page: 

Three of these cases i.e. State of Uttar Pradesh v Lalta Prasad Vaish, Property Owners Association v State of Maharashtra and Mineral Area Development Authority v Steel Authority of India have been decided in the last few months. Notably, Property Owners Association was decided on 5 November, eight days before the web page that was “reviewed and updated” on 13 November. We surmise that the portal which is reached from the Supreme Court website contains more accurate pendency data, because the lists there don’t carry the names of these Constitution Bench cases which have already been decided. 

If we were to refer to the page that was “reviewed and updated” on 13 November, we would conclude that pendency increased by 409 cases in November compared to October 2024. Further, Constitution Bench pendency would be considered to have remained unchanged since July 2024.

If you have any information about this data discrepancy, do write to us at admin@scobserver.in. You can also reach out to us on our Twitter and Instagram.