There are 29 Constitution Bench matter which are pending in the Supreme Court and out of which 29 cases, 18 cases are being pending before 5-Judge Bench, 6 cases pending before the 7-Judge Bench and 5 cases are pending before 9-Judge Bench for adjudication.
The Union Law Ministry give the said information in response to the query raised by CPI(M) MP AM Arif.
The list of the case which are oendnding include the oldest case is Abhiram Singh v. C.D Commachen (Dead) By Lrs. & Ors which dates back to the year 1992 which relates to the election of Santacruz Legislative Assembly Seat held in 1990 for the Maharashtra State Legislative Assembly.
In response to the MP’s question whether the reason for pendency of such cases is the lack of interest in expediting, wherein it has been replied by the ministry that it cannot be said that the reason for pendency of the Constitution Bench cases is the lack of interest in expediting the same.
Adding to it, it has been stated that it is not possible to set out the strict parameters and timelines with regards to the adjudication of such cases and said issues require deep analysis and thorough examination of law.
Disposal of the Matters of Constitution Bench:
It being pertinent to note that in the period of one decade, the Top Court had disposed of the lowest number of cases between 2010-2019 i.e only 71 cases and whereas, since during the inspection it was found that Supreme Court highest disposal was done in the year 1960-1969 which is 956 cases. The Supreme Court in the years 2020-2023 disposed of only 19 Constitutional Bench matters. Therefore, the data was not being provided on the number of cases filed during these periods.
The Ministry in its reply stated that as per the information provided by Supreme Court with regards to the constitution of Special Benches, since November 2022, six Special Benches have been constituted by the Chief Justice of India; the sitting of such Special Benches is on every Wednesday and Thursday which are designated as the Regular Hearing Days and these benches dealt with:
(i) The Death Reference Cases And the Criminal Matters;
(ii) The Land Acquisition and Requisition Matters;
(iii) The Compensation Matters and Matters relating to Consumer Protection
(iv) The Indirect Tax matters and Arbitration matters
(v) The Service Matters and
(vi) The Direct Tax Matters.
