Similarly, the 5 seven-judge Bench cases pending before the Supreme Court have 57 connected matters and have been pending for a total of 28,680 days (average 5,736 days).
Out of this, the Special Leave Petition in the case of Arjun Flour Mills v. State of Orissa which deals with the question “whether or not the State Legislature can pass a law levying a surcharge on sales tax?” was filed on February 11, 1994 and the case has been pending for 10,230 days.
The case ofState of Punjab v. Davinder Singh was challenged before the Supreme Court on August 13, 2010 and has hence been pending before the Court for 4,203 days. This does not include the journey of the said case through the High Court. The case deals with the significant issue of sub-classification within reserved seats for Scheduled Castes in Punjab. The case further has 20 connected matters out of which 8 cases have been pending for over 14 years each.
Another such significant case is the case of Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank Limited that was last listed before the seven-judge bench on November 25, 2020. Pending before the Supreme Court since March 28, 2017 (1,784 days), the case has 18 connected matters and deals with the issue of classification of the Finance Act, 2017 as a Money Bill.
The 25 five-Judge Bench cases pending before the Court have 267 connected matters have remained pending for a total of 1,00,178 days (average 4007.12 days).
The oldest pending case before a Constitution Bench is the case of Central Board of Dawoodi Bohra Community v. State of Maharashtra which has been pending since February 28, 1986 (13,135 days). The case also has one tagged matter that has been pending for over 31 years.
The case of Ashok Kumar Jain v. Union of India which challenged the validity of the Constitution (79th Amendment) Act, 1999 providing reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Anglo-Indian community, has been pending before a five-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court since July 10, 2000 (7,889 days).
The case deals with a significant constitutional matter and has 7 connected matters, out of which the case of Harishankar Rajpurohit v. Union of India through its Cabinet Secretary and Mange Ram Sharma v. Union of India through Cabinet Secretary have been pending for over 20 years.
Similarly, the case of Janhit Abhiyan v. Union of India has been pending since January 15, 2019. Similar to the previous case, this case challenges the constitutional validity of the Constitution (One Hundred and Third Amendment) Act, 2019, which empowers governments to provide reservations to economically weaker sections for admission to educational institutions and appointments in services to a maximum of 10 per cent. The case has as many as 46 tagged matters awaiting the verdict of the Court.
A study conducted by Nick Robinson stated that the number of Constitution Benches being constituted by the Supreme Court has drastically decreased over the decades. While the Court constituted an average of about 100 five-judge or larger benches a year in the 1960s, by the first decade of the 2000s this decreased to about nine a year. The above data shows not only a lack of Benches being constituted, also the lack of will to adjudicate these significant cases.
Source: Barandbench
