The Supreme Court of India has disposed about 52,191 cases during the period January 1, 2023 to December 15, 2023.
These include 45642 Miscellaneous matters and around 6549 regular matters.
As per the Apex Court data, the total number of matters disposed of in 2023 stood at 52191 in comparison to the total registration of 49191 cases.
The top court of the country managed to dismiss 52191 matters in comparision to the total number of cases diarised during the said period, which stood at 52660.
The disposal of cases was highest in terms of numbers since ICMIS (Integrated Case Management Information System) was implemented in the year 2017.
On the basis of his vision the Chief Justice of India D. Y. Chandrachud had a blueprint for disposal of cases and with the concerted efforts by his team
the Chief Justice of India and Supreme Court Judges he achieved his targets.
The CJI streamlined the timeframe required for filing to the listing
of the matters.
In his tenure, there was a paradigm shift in the filing to the listing of
the cases where in place of 10 days, from listing to filing the same was reduced to
within 7 to 5 days of listing after verification of the matter.
During this time,certain matters such as Bail, Habeas Corpus, Eviction matters,
Demolition, and Anticipatory bail the matters were processed in one day and listed in courts immediately thereafter keeping in view the Right to liberty at the highest pedestal.
In the full court meeting, it was resolved that Monday and Friday would be
miscellaneous days and Tuesday would be specifically kept for after notice
miscellaneous matters.
It was also decided that Wednesday and Thursday were categorized as
regular matter days.
The result of the said strategy clearly impacted the disposal of matters where the important matters were disposed category-wise.
With regard to the disposal of Regular matters, the said strategic intervention resulted in threetimes the disposal of the number of matters instituted during the said period.
Additionally, the Supreme Court actively streamlined the flow of cases and
expedited the resolution of legal disputes. Specialized benches were constituted to
handle specific categories of cases, leading to a more specialized and efficient
adjudication process.
The said targets could only be achieved sas the Chief Justice of India
designated specific benches for hearing Death Reference cases including other
criminal matters, Motor Accident Claim Tribunal (MACT) matters, Land Acquisition
matters, Compensation matters, Direct Tax matters, Indirect Tax Matters, and
Arbitration matters.
The same aspect can be found from the table above wherein the disposal per category as mentioned supra clearly depicts that sitting of special benches fruitified into achieving desired results of disposal.
It is implied that the decision to constitute special benches resulted in
expeditious disposal of special category matters with special emphasis on personal liberty matters, eviction matters, and service matters.
The same is evident from the appraisal of disposal wherein 4410 service matters were disposed of, 11489 criminal
matters were disposed of and 10348 civil matters were disposed of during the
period of 1.1.2023 to 15.12.2023.
This unprecedented disposal also constituted the identification of batch matters and their disposal.
In one of the instances, 392
Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) cases were disposed of by the Court in a
single instance and in another case 700 matters were heard and reserved for
judgment. Similarly, a number of courts disposed of batch matters.
Three judges’ benches were constituted which sat for 166 sittings
and dealt with important three Judge bench matters and references.
Also, about five Judges and seven Judges benches were also constituted
wherein 2 seven Judge matters were heard and in one of the cases judgment was reserved and in the other.
Other matters including Arbitration matters relating to stamped documents and their admissibility, Heavy Motor Vehicles being driven on normal licenses, Settling tusslebetween Delhi Government and Centre, Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Matter,Rights of LGBTQ, and other important matters have been duly heard and pronounced.