Courting reform: Newly appointed CJI B R Gavai must address case pendency

The swearing in of Justice Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai as the 52nd chief justice of the Supreme Court offers a reminder of how equal access to opportunity can smooth India’s bumpy road to social inclusion. Justice Gavai is, however, only the second Dalit to head the Supreme Court — after Justice K G Balakrishnan — and one of only seven Supreme Court judges from the community since the apex court was established in 1950, an indicator perhaps of the distance India has to travel towards genuine social equality. Justice Gavai’s early career partly reflects these hurdles. Typically, under Article 124(3) of the Constitution, to qualify for appointment as a Supreme Court judge, a person needs to be a high court judge for five years or an advocate of a high court for at least 10 years. Justice Gavai served as a high court judge for 16 years before being appointed to the Supreme Court in May 2019. As he frankly acknowledged after his appointment, his elevation to the apex court was fast-tracked by about two years chiefly because the government needed to ensure diversity on the Bench.

 

Justice Gavai has been part of several seminal apex court judgments — among them, upholding the revocation of Jammu & Kashmir’s special status, the one on demonetisation, allowing states to create sub-categories within the Scheduled Castes for reservation purposes, and striking down the electoral bond scheme for political funding. Among the more politically sensitive cases in his docket as he takes charge as chief justice is the validity of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025. Like his predecessor Justice Sanjiv Khanna, he will have just six months in office, till November. Though this does not leave much scope for the deep institutional reform that the Supreme Court badly needs, he has his predecessor’s tenure to serve as a model of low-key efficiency in addressing the art of the possible. Justice Khanna addressed the vexed issue of the collegium process of appointments by introducing a mechanism to meet and interview candidates selected for high court judgeship, which added a measure of integrity to a process that has been under fire from the executive for some years. His decision to mandate disclosing assets acquired by sitting Supreme Court judges added a critical measure of integrity to an institution whose credibility has suffered in recent years.

 

Despite his measured style and practical approach, Justice Khanna leaves for his successor the vexed issue of pending cases. According to the Supreme Court’s data, case pendency remains a critical issue. Despite Justice Khanna’s best efforts to unclog the docket by identifying old and infructuous cases, accelerating the disposal rate of criminal cases alone by over 100 per cent, and adjudicating over half the cases of motor-accident claims, the number of pending cases is still huge at over 80,000, principally because the rate at which new cases are being instituted exceeds the number of cases being disposed of. The number of Constitution Bench cases is also worryingly high. Some 20 main cases and 293 tagged cases (that is, those cases that are linked to other cases) are pending among five-judge Benches. Though his tenure is short, Justice Gavai has emulated his predecessor in declaring that he would not accept any government post after he retires. As a means of restoring public trust in the higher judiciary, that is a reassuring first move.