The Indian Supreme Court’s identity crisis: a constitutional court or a court of appeals?

Journal article

Abstract:: This article presents an empirical analysis of the Supreme Court’s discretionary appellate jurisdiction (triggered by a “special leave petition” or “SLP”). Based on an analysis of 1100 randomly selected civil SLP cases spread over 11 years, it argues that its expansive SLP docket has cannibalized the Court’s role as an effective constitutional court. It reveals that the admissibility of special leave petitions has a statistically significant relationship with the presence of a “senior advocate” during the admissions hearing. The article emphasizes the need for an institutional separation of the appellate and constitutional functions of the Supreme Court: either as two separate courts or as two separate divisions within a single Supreme Court. It also suggests reducing or eliminating the docket-distorting role of senior advocates – either by taking admission decisions on civil SLPs largely based on written briefs or barring senior advocates from appearing in oral admission hearings for civil SLPs.

Files:: Khatain_2020_Indian_Supreme_Court.pdf

(Preview, Accepted manuscript, pdf, 1.5MB, Terms of use)

Language:: English
Keywords:: Supreme Court

senior advocates

empirical analysis

constitutional court

SLP

FFR

special leave petition

admission decisions

constitutional watchdog

discretionary appeal
Pubs id:: 1113174
Local pid:: pubs:1113174
Deposit date:: 2022-10-24

Copyright holder:: Informa UK Limited
Notes:: This is the accepted manuscript version of the article. The final version is available online from Routledge at: https://doi.org/10.1080/24730580.2020.1730543

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