The Supreme Court of India is the supreme judicial authority and the highest court of the Republic of India. It is the final court of appeal for all civil and criminal cases in India. It also has the power of judicial review. The Supreme Court,which consists of the Chief Justice of India and a maximum of fellow 33 judges,has extensive powers in the form of original,appellate and advisory jurisdictions.
Adarsh Sein Anand was the 29th Chief Justice of India,serving from 10 October 1998 to 31 October 2001.
Konakuppakatil Gopinathan Balakrishnan is an Indian judge who served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India and later the chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission of India. He was the first judge from Kerala to become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. His tenure lasting more than three years has been one of the longest in the Supreme Court of India. While being Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court,he was appointed as the acting governor of Gujarat from 16 January 1999 to 18 March 1999. In 2010,he was conferred with an honorary doctorate by Cochin University of Science and Technology.
Kiren Rijiju is an Indian politician from Arunachal Pradesh who is the Cabinet Minister of Earth Sciences and Food Processing Industries in the Government of India since 2023 and 2024 and a member of the parliament in Lok Sabha from Arunachal West since 2014 and from 2004 to 2009. Earlier,he served as the Minister of State for Home Affairs from 2014 to 2019,Minister of State for Minority Affairs from 2019 to 2021,Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs from 2019 to 2021 and the Law minister from 2021 to 2023.
Altamas Kabir was an Indian lawyer and judge who served as the 39th Chief Justice of India.
Ranjan Gogoi is an Indian former advocate and judge who served as the 46th Chief Justice of India from 2018 to 2019,having previously served as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India from 2012 to 2018. He is currently a Member of the Rajya Sabha,having been nominated by President Ram Nath Kovind on 16 March 2020. Gogoi served as a judge in the Gauhati High Court from 2001 to 2010,and then was transferred as a judge to the Punjab and Haryana High Court from 2010 to 2011 where he later was the Chief Justice from 2011 to 2012. He is also a member of the Committee on External Affairs in the Rajya Sabha.
Kuttiyil Mathew Joseph is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India;he retired on 16 June 2023. He is former chief justice of the Uttarakhand High Court. Before his appointment as chief justice of the High Court of Uttarakhand on 31 July 2014,he had served as a judge of the Kerala High Court for more than nine years.
Sharad Arvind Bobde is an Indian judge who served as the 47th Chief Justice of India from 18 November 2019 to 23 April 2021.
Nuthalapati Venkata Ramana is a former Indian judge and journalist who served as the 48th Chief Justice of India.
Indu Malhotra is a retired judge and senior counsel of the Supreme Court of India. She was the second woman to be designated as senior advocate by the Supreme Court. She was the first woman advocate to be elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court of India directly from the bar. She also authored the third edition of The Law and Practice of Arbitration and Conciliation (2014).
Uday Umesh Lalit is an Indian lawyer and former Supreme Court Judge,who served as the 49th Chief Justice of India. Previously,he has served as a judge of Supreme Court of India. Prior to his elevation as a judge,he practised as a senior counsel at the Supreme Court. Justice Lalit is one of the six senior counsels who have been directly elevated to the Supreme Court. He is currently ‘Distinguished Visiting Professor’at Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies,Indian Institute of Technology,Bombay. and Distinguished Visiting Professor at West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences
Lavu Nageswara Rao is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. He is the seventh person elevated directly from the bar to the Supreme Court and was sworn in on 13 May 2016. He was a senior advocate and a former Additional Solicitor General of India.
S. Abdul Nazeer is the 24th Governor of Andhra Pradesh. He is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India and a former judge of the Karnataka High Court. He was appointed as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh on 12 February 2023.
Justice Gita Mittal is a retired Indian judge. She is the former Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court and the first woman judge to serve in that capacity. She has also served as the Acting Chief Justice of Delhi High Court while she was serving as a Judge of the Delhi High Court.
Suryakant Sharma is an Indian judge of the Supreme Court of India,set to become the 53rd Chief Justice of India,if the convention of seniority is followed. Prior to his elevation as judge,Kant was a Senior Advocate and also served as the Advocate General for Haryana.
Prashant Kumar Mishra is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. He is former chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and acting chief justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court. He has also served as judge of the Chhattisgarh High Court. On 19 May 2023,he was elevated as judge of the Supreme Court of India.
Bangalore Venkataramiah Nagarathna is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. She served as a judge of the Karnataka High Court from 2008 to 2021. Her father,E. S. Venkataramiah,was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India in 1989.
Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha is a judge of the Supreme Court of India. He is former Additional Solicitor General of India. He is well known for his work on the Ayodhya Title Dispute and the BCCI cases.
Jamshed Burjor Pardiwala is a judge of the Supreme Court of India since May 2022. He is a former judge of the Gujarat High Court.
Pendency of court cases in India is the delay in the disposal of cases (lawsuits) to provide justice to the aggrieved person or organisation by judicial courts at all levels. The judiciary in India works in hierarchy at three levels - federal or supreme court,state or high courts,and district courts. The court cases is categorised into two types - civil and criminal. In 2023,the total number of pending cases of all types and at all levels rose above 50 million or 5 crores,including over 169,000 court cases pending for more than 30 years in district and high courts. 4.3 crore out of 5 crore cases,i.e more than 85% cases,are pending in district courts as of December 2022. Government itself is the biggest litigant,having 50% of the pending cases being sponsored by the state. Land and property disputes account for the largest set of pending cases. About 66% of all civil cases in India are related to land and property disputes;and 25% of all cases decided by the Supreme Court involve land disputes.
