100 days of CJI Surya Kant

Chief Justice Surya Kant took oath as the 53rd Chief Justice of India in November 2025, after CJIs Sanjiv Khanna and B.R. Gavai completed six-month tenures. CJI Surya Kant has a 14-month tenure and 2026 all to himself. What does the Chief have brewing and what has he already served? Here’s a snapshot of his first 100 days in office.

The backlog battle 

Even before his oath-taking ceremony, CJI Surya Kant flagged pendency as a priority. The Supreme Court’s docket had crossed 90,000 cases at the time, with a sharp increase of nearly 10,000 in 2025 alone. The Chief identified two areas for intervention:

• Constitution Benches → to resolve critical legal questions that have hindered decision-making at lower courts.
• Mediation → “An easy game changer”, in the Chief’s words.

There are 29 Constitution Bench cases pending before the Supreme Court. The Chief had indicated that seven- and nine-judge cases would receive priority. While the initial plan was to list nine-judge matters in January 2026, two have now been listed for March and April: the Definition of Industry case and the Sabarimala Review. There has been no news so far on seven– and five–judge matters.

Meanwhile, the Chief continues to push for mediation at public forums, citing Hindu religious texts to suggest that mediation is part of an “inherited DNA”. He also led a ‘Mediation Awareness Walk’ in December 2025 and recently requested state governments to increase incentives for both successful and unsuccessful mediation.

Do the numbers reflect any change yet? Our monthly pendency review tomorrow will take a closer look. For now, the early indication is this: while the backlog continued to grow through December and January, last month closed with a modest drop in pending cases.*

Mention not 

On many evenings these past few weeks, our court reporter Namrata Banerjee returned with stories of CJI Surya Kant’s latest emphatic rejection of oral mentionings. On his very first day, the Chief made it clear that unless life and liberty are at stake, he would not permit urgent listing through oral mention—written requests must instead be submitted to the Registrar. Within five days of taking office, a circular clarified that no mentioning of matters would be permitted in the Chief’s Court. 

The persisting admission of oral mentionings in other courts, however, continues to raise eyebrows. Remarks from sitting judges also suggest that there is no broad consensus on a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued to cap the length of written submissions and oral arguments. That’s the elephant in the room: is CJI Surya Kant the master of only his own court or the whole court? 

Most recently, the Chief publicly pulled up the top court’s Registry for disregarding the new reforms, while also noting that he intends to set its house in order before his tenure ends. “There are officials in the Registry who have been here since the last 20-30 years. They think we (judges) are all here in transit and they are permanent,” he remarked. 

All quiet on the Collegium front

100 days, seven meetings. 19 judges recommended for appointment at High Courts along with five ad-hoc judges. More recently, a policy decision was taken to ensure that when a High Court Chief Justice is due to retire, the judge proposed to take over is transferred two months prior. This move seeks to provide time for a judge to become familiar with a court before assuming charge.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court continues to function with one vacancy against its sanctioned strength of 34 judges.

Former Chief Justices seemed eager to exercise their power over appointments. Both CJIs Khanna and Gavai filled vacancies within two weeks of their respective tenures. How long does the Chief plan to wait? With Justice Rajesh Bindal due to retire in April 2026, followed by Justices J.K. Maheshwari and Pankaj Mithal in June 2026, the strength of the Court will drop further to 30.

*Figures obtained from the National Judicial Data Grid on 3 March indicate 92,180 pending cases, a decrease of 648 from figures collected on 5 February.

Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version incorrectly stated that the number of pending Constitution Bench cases is 25. The correct number is 29.

The final paragraph omitted reference to Justice Rajesh Bindal’s retirement in April 2026. Accordingly, assuming no new appointments, the strength of the Supreme Court will drop to 30 (and not 31) in June 2026. The errors are regretted.