Supreme Court of India and the Jurisprudence of Delay

Abstract

There are around 21.3 million cases currently pending in various courts in India including the Supreme Court. This problem of delay in Indian judicial system has been studied extensively by the Indian Law Commission over the years. In these studies, infrastructural deficiencies have frequently been blamed for the delay. And accordingly, more courts and more judges are seen as a solution. This paper examines a cause of delay that has escaped the lens of the Commission and remains under-examined in the literature and public discourse on delay i.e. the contribution of the courts to the problem by non-adherence to procedural time-frames. The paper argues that solving the infrastructural deficit by itself would not reduce delays unless a simultaneous effort is made at reforming what this paper calls ‘the jurisprudence of delay’ that has been allowed to take root.

Keywords: Judicial Delay, Civil Procedure, Supreme Court of India, Amendment, Law Commission Report

JEL Classification: K4, K41