Teamwork among Supreme Court judges is excellent: CJI Surya Kant Interview

In what could be a first, the Supreme Court of India has decided to constitute four dedicated benches to hear the oldest cases pending before it.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant has described the move as an "experiment" will ultimately be judged by its results.

In a conversation with Bar & Bench, the CJI says he is putting it to test and hopes the initiative, if successful, will become a model that future Chief Justices might want to emulate.

The CJI explains how studying the pendency and listing patterns led to the decision, why the oldest appeals were left behind by the Court's existing listing system and how the new benches seek to correct that imbalance.

Excerpts from the conversation below.

Debayan Roy [DR]: You have recently made some key decisions to reduce pendency in old cases in the Supreme Court. Could tell us more about it.

CJI Surya Kant: Two things need to be correlated here. Of the roughly 93,000 matters shown as pending in the Supreme Court, nearly 10,000 aren't actually pending because they're matters in default where objections are pending, and lawyers have not removed those objections. These are defective matters.

If ten defective matters are cured in a day, another ten may get filed the same day, so that number of around 10,000 fluctuates but never really goes away. It exists purely because of lawyers' delay in curing defects.

So the actual pendency in the Supreme Court is around 83,000-plus matters. Out of these, nearly 40 to 45 per cent are appeals where leave has been granted - criminal or civil and and these are among the oldest matters on our docket.

Our listing pattern is to list fresh matters first. Then there is the prioritised list. As you are fully aware of the Supreme Court's functioning, on Tuesdays we take up matters in which notices have been issued and the matters are still at the preliminary stage. These are called non-miscellaneous matters.

These post-notice matters are also almost fresh matters, and there are around 48,000 such cases. Because fresh and post-notice matters stay in constant circulation, the turn of the old matters never comes.

DR: What prompted you to take this step?

CJI: There is a strong feeling among litigants who have waited eight or ten years that cases filed after theirs are being decided while their cases are never taken up.

To address this issue, I have now constituted four dedicated benches - two for the oldest civil matters, two for the oldest criminal matters.

Before these benches, I will list only the oldest matters and proceed year by year. If the oldest civil appeal is from 2005, it will be listed at serial number 1. Similarly, if the oldest criminal appeal is from 2009, that will be listed first.

It is starting from July 15. In effect, my strength increased by only four judges (on recent appointment of four new judges), but by constituting four benches instead of two, I have made eight judges available for the oldest cases. The burden of fresh matters and post-notice matters will, of course, be shared by the other judges.

DR: Did you have a full court meeting or discuss it with the other judges?

CJI: No, honestly, this was entirely my own exercise carried out with the registry. I have been asking for different kinds of data.

I took over as CJI on November 24 last year and the winter break came in December. So in 2025, I had hardly any reliable data or feedback on how the Court was functioning.

From January to May, I observed the disposal pattern. The disposal rate is increasing, and the judges are working very hard. But they are unable to reach the oldest cases because those are listed last.

First you list the fresh matters, then the post-notice matters and only thereafter, the regular matters. As a result, the oldest cases do not come up because the roster is already overflowing.

After doing this homework through June, I decided that once the break ended, I had to address it and hence these benches.

DR: Do you think it is one of the most important developments from the Supreme Court in recent years?

CJI: Yes. This initiative is probably a first.

DR: Do you hope that this kind of bench formation continues even after your retirement?

CJI: Frankly speaking, I am putting myself to the test. If these benches perform well and the outcome is good, then it will be an attractive incentive for the next Chief Justice of India to continue with the system.

But if this new initiative fails, then obviously nobody would like to continue it.

DR: How did the judges receive the proposal?

CJI Surya Kant: Wholeheartedly. The teamwork among judges in the Supreme Court is excellent. All my sister and brother judges are cooperative, and any new suggestion for the system's betterment is received positively. They are very receptive to new ideas.

DR: You have stuck to your decision to discontinue same-day mentioning has. I have seen that you do not permit unnecessary mentioning. But oral mentioning often continues before other benches and judges have not shown complete uniformity on the standard operating procedure.

CJI: First of all, mentioning in fresh matters is only before court no. 1. So I would say the reform has survived well.

Mentioning before other benches is only in matters falling within their own roster. There is no mentioning of fresh matters before any bench other than the Chief Justice's bench.

So it is working well.

DR: There was a very magnanimous decision taken by the vacation bench led by Justice KV Viswanathan, where a litigant who had used unparliamentary language in court, was let off. How do you look at that incident? Did you take offence?

CJI: I really don't take these things seriously. I treat them like children behaving emotionally. Sometimes children burst out and we react as parents do.

"Bachche hain. Bachchon ki baatein hain."

With judicial training, over time, one becomes strong enough to ignore such incidents and not allow them to affect day-to-day functioning. Otherwise, it becomes very difficult for a judge to perform if affected by everything said in court.

DR: Today in court No. 1, just before the court rose, there was a matter of a lady who appeared extremely distraught. You constituted a special bench for her case. When litigants come before you with so much emotion, does it ever move you or do you go only by the law?

CJI: Normally, we go by the law.

But we are also touched by their difficulties, their mitigating circumstances and the hardships they are facing. After all, we are also human beings.

So, sometimes we do go out of our way to help such litigants, and we should.

After all, equity should always work hand in hand with the law.