@article{2018:sindhu:institutio,
title = {Institution Matters: A Critical Analysis of the Role of the Supreme Court of India and the Responsibilities of the Chief Justice},
year = {2018},
note = {Today, the Indian Supreme Court serves as a constitutional court, a
regular appeals court and as an equal partner in governance of the
country. This year, questions over the administration of the Court
repeatedly arose in public discourse, particularly with respect to the
Chief Justice’s discretionary power in listing cases. This paper
closely examines the manner in which the listing practices are
employed to fulfil the various roles of the Supreme Court, and argues
that the Court would perform better if the responsibility for its
administration vested with the institution rather than the Chief
Justice alone. We argue that with a heavy backlog, and a high number
of cases being filed every year, the only realistic way that a Chief
Justice can try to solve the crisis facing the Court is by seeking to
hear and dispose of more cases quickly. Through an analysis of the
listing practices employed by successive Chief Justices between 2012
and 2017, we show that this emphasis on disposal is problematic
because it prioritizes cases that may be grouped together and cases
that can be disposed of quickly irrespective of their relative
importance in terms of content. Moreover, we show that this approach
seems to encourage more litigants to try their luck before the Court,
and effectively leaves the Court with relatively less time to hear
constitution bench matters and regular matters. We further argue that
the current ad-hoc and judge-dependent approach toward administering
the Court runs the risk of being abused by wealthy litigants who may
not have the most important or urgent cases. Finally, we argue that an
institutional approach toward administering the Court would best
answer the questions recently raised and the problems identified in
this paper, and we outline how an institutional approach should work.},
journal = {VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee},
pages = {290--331},
author = {Sindhu, Jahnavi and Narayan, Vikram Aditya},
volume = {51},
number = {3}
}