Justice Pankaj Mithal: Tenure in numbers

Today is Justice Pankaj Mithal’s last official day at the Supreme Court. He served a tenure of 3 years and 4 months after he was elevated in February 2023 from his position as Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court.

A third-generation lawyer and second-generation High Court judge, Justice Mithal retired with a decade’s worth of judicial experience, after a 21-year career as an advocate in Uttar Pradesh. He is known for his writing and research on the history of the Allahabad High Court.

Following Justice Mithal on the way out is Justice J.K. Maheshwari who is due to retire on 28 June. Their retirement will bring the total number of sitting judges down to 35, three short of its sanctioned strength of 38 judges.

Figure 1 plots the expected tenure of all sitting judges of the Supreme Court. Justice Mithal’s 3.4 year tenure falls below the average tenure of 5 years. It is below the expected tenure of the four other judges appointed on the same day—Justices Sanjay Karol (with an expected tenure of 3.5 years), P.V. Sanjay Kumar (5.5 years), Ahsanuddin Amanullah (5.3) and Manoj Misra (7.3).

Justice J.B. Pardiwala is expected to serve the longest tenure—8.3 years.

Number of judgements authored

Figure 2 highlights the total judgements (blue bar) authored by judges who have served more than three years at the Supreme Court. The green bar highlights the annual average of judgements authored by each judge.

Justice Mithal authored 127 judgements with an average of 38 judgements a year.

Among the February 2023 appointees, Justice Karol has authored the highest number of judgements with 226 in total and an annual average of 68. Justice Amanullah follows close behind Justice Mithal with a total of 122 and an annual average of 36 judgements.

The maximum number of judgements in this data set (366) have been authored by Justice B.V. Nagarathna who averaged 76 per year.

Year-wise breakdown

Figure 3 provides an annual breakdown of judgements authored by Justice Mithal (left bar), the number of benches he participated in (middle bar) and his rate of authorship (right bar). The rate of authorship refers to the percentage of benches he has authored the judgement for.

While Justice Mithal’s rate of authorship held a steady 50 per cent during the first two years of his tenure, it dropped by 10 per cent with each successive year. There was a corresponding fall in his bench participation which had peaked at 98 in 2024 and dropped to 41 in 2026. Notably, he only served 6 months in 2026.

Justice Mithal authored the highest number of judgements (49) in his second year and the lowest in his final year (13).

Overall, he has authored judgements in 45 per cent of the benches he was part of.

Subject-matter breakdown

Justice Mithal authored a majority of judgements in criminal matters (47). This is followed by civil and property (21 each) and service matters (14).

*Note: The data cited in this article was sourced from Manupatra on 15 June 2026. Justice Mithal’s office has previously disputed this source with regard to figures we published at the time of his elevation. This article will be updated once we receive a response to our request for revised data.