Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T14:59:53.115Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Supreme Court of India

An Empirical Overview of the Institution

from Part I - The Supreme Court of India – An Institutional Overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2019

Gerald N. Rosenberg
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Sudhir Krishnaswamy
Affiliation:
Azim Premji University, Bangalore
Shishir Bail
Affiliation:
Azim Premji University, Bangalore
Get access

Summary

The Indian Supreme Court has been called “the most powerful court in the world” for its wide jurisdiction, its expansive understanding of its own powers, and the billion plus people under its authority. Yet scholars and policy makers have a very uneven picture of the court’s functioning: deep knowledge about the more visible, “high-profile” cases but very little about more mundane, but far more numerous and potentially equally important, decisions. This chapter aims to address this imbalance with a rigorous, empirical account of the Court’s decisions from 2010 to 2015. We use the most extensive original dataset of Indian Supreme Court opinions yet created to provide a broad, quantitative overview of the social identity of the litigants that approach the court, the types of matters they bring to the court, the levels of success that different groups of litigants have before the Court, and the opinion-writing patterns of the various judges of the Supreme Court. This analysis provides foundational facts for the study of the Court and its role in progressive social change.

Type
Chapter
Information
A Qualified Hope
The Indian Supreme Court and Progressive Social Change
, pp. 43 - 76
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anand, Utkarsh. 2014. Allocate More Time to Social Justice Bench, Say Experts. Indian Express. Dec. 13. Accessed Aug. 29, 2018. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/allocate-more-time-to-social-justice-bench-say-experts/.Google Scholar
Andhyarujina, T. R. 2012. The Age of Judicial Reform. The Hindu. September 1. Accessed Aug. 30, 2018. www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-age-of-judicial-reform/article3845041.ece.Google Scholar
Central Board of Dawoodi Bohra v. State of Maharashtra. 2005. 2 SCC 673 (Supreme Court of India).Google Scholar
Chandra, Aparna, Hubbard, William H. J., and Kalantry, Sital. 2017. The Supreme Court of India: A People’s Court? Indian L. Rev. 1(2):145181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandrachud, Abhinav. 2012. Supreme Court’s Seniority Norm: Historical Origins. Econ. & Pol. Weekly 47(8):2630.Google Scholar
Dhavan, Rajeev. 1986. Litigation Explosion in India. N.M. Tripathi.Google Scholar
Fischer, Alexander. 2008. Higher Lawmaking as a Political Resource. In Sovereignty and Diversity, Jovanović, Miodrag and Henrard eds, Kristin. Eleven International Publishing.Google Scholar
Gadbois, George H. 1970. The Supreme Court of India: A Preliminary Report of an Empirical Study. J. Const. & Parliamentary Stud. 4:34.Google Scholar
Gadbois, George. 1974. Supreme Court Decision Making. Banaras L. J. 10:149.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc, and Robinson, Nick. 2013. India’s Grand Advocates: A Legal Elite Flourishing in the Era of Globalization. November. Accessed Aug. 30, 2018. file:///Users/sumridhikaur/Downloads/SSRN-id2348699.pdf.Google Scholar
Gopal, G. Mohal. 2016. Justice and the Two Ideas of India. Frontline. May 27. Accessed Aug. 29, 2018. www.frontline.in/cover-story/justice-and-the-two-ideas-of-india/article8581178.ece.Google Scholar
Iyer, V. R. Krishna. 1987. Our Courts on Trial. B.R. Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Kumar, Alok Prasanna. 2015. The True Worth of a Senior Advocate. Sept. 16. Accessed Aug. 30, 2018. www.livemint.com/Politics/FFgFOFnzN8rqvRNWTTgugM/The-true-worth-of-a-senior-advocate.html.Google Scholar
Kumar, Alok Prasanna, Faiza, Rahman, and Jauhar, Ameen. 2015. Vidhi Ctr. for Legal Pol’y, Consultation Paper: The Supreme Court of India’s Burgeoning Backlog Problem and Regional Disparities in Access to the Supreme Court. 2015. Accessed Aug. 30, 2018. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/551ea026e4b0adba21a8f9df/t/560cf7d4e4b092010fff89b1/1443690452706/29092015_Consultation+Paper+on+the+Supreme+Court%27s+Burgeoning+Backlog+Problem.pdf.Google Scholar
Law Commission of India. 2009. 229th Law Commission Report. Indiankanoon. August. Accessed Aug. 29, 2018. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/24442307/.Google Scholar
Masoodi, Ashwaq, and Monalisa, . 2014. Supreme Court sets up social justice bench. Live Mint. Dec. 4. Accessed Aug. 31, 2018. www.livemint.com/Politics/vUH4B7kKPH4WcSFbnfhRKP/SC-sets-up-social-justice-bench-to-deal-with-social-issues.html.Google Scholar
Moti Ram & Ors. v. State of M.P. 1978. 4 SSC 47 (Supreme Court of India, Aug. 24).Google Scholar
Nariman, Fali. 2014. Abolish Two Judge Benches. Indian Express. Apr. 10.Google Scholar
Robinson, Nick. 2013. A Quantitative Analysis of the Indian Supreme Court’s Workload. J. Empirical Legal Stud. 10(3):570601.Google Scholar
Robinson, Nick. 2013. A Court Adrift. Frontline. May 03. Accessed Aug. 30, 2018. www.frontline.in/cover-story/a-court-adrift/article4613892.ece.Google Scholar
Robinson, Nick. 2013. Structure Matters: The Impact of Court Structure on the Indian and U.S. Supreme Courts. Am. J. Comparative L. 61(1):173208.Google Scholar
Robinson, Nick, Agarwal, Anjana, Bhandari, Vrinda, Goel, Ankit, Kakkar, Karishma, Muthalaly, Reeba, Shivakumar, Vivek, Sreekumar, Meera, Sreenivasan, Surya, and Viswanathan, Shruti. 2011. Interpreting the Constitution: Supreme Court Constitution Benches since Independence. Econ. & Pol. Weekly 46(9):2731.Google Scholar
S.P. Gupta v. Union of India. 1982. AIR 1982 SC 149 (Supreme Court of India).Google Scholar
Shankar, Shylashri. 2010. India’s Judiciary: Imperium in Imperio. In Routledge Handbook of South Asian Politics, ed. Brass, Paul R.. Routledge.Google Scholar
Shrivastava, Rakesh Kumar. 2014. Update: A Guide to India’s Legal Research and Legal System. GlobaLex. April. Accessed Aug. 30, 2018. www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/India_Legal_Research1.html.Google Scholar
Special Reference No. 1 of 1998. 1998. 7 SCC 739 (Supreme Court of India).Google Scholar
Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association v. Union of India. 1993. 4 SCC 441 (Supreme Court of India).Google Scholar
Supreme Court of India. 2014. Annual Report 2014. New Delhi: Supreme Court of India. Accessed Aug. 30, 2018. www.sci.gov.in/pdf/AnnualReports/annualreport2014-15.pdf.Google Scholar
Supreme Court of India. 2010. Practice and Procedure: A Handbook of Information. Supreme Court of India.Google Scholar
Supreme Court of India. n.d. List of Senior Advocates Designated by Supreme Court (as on 23/04/2015). Accessed Aug. 20, 2016. www.sci.nic.in/outtoday/List%20of%20Sr.%20Advocates%20 Designated%20by%20Supreme%20Court%20as%20on%2023%2004%202015.pdf.Google Scholar
Supreme Court of India. n.d. Supreme Court of India. Accessed Aug. 30, 2018. www.sci.gov.in/.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×