Chief Justice N V Ramana leaves behind a 6.1% increase in pending cases

Analysis of appointment orders shows that during his 16-month term, Justice Ramana made 241 appointments to the high courts, against the 243 appointments made by Justice Bobde in his 18 months as CJI

On August 26, as Justice Nuthalapati Venkata Ramana demitted his office as the Chief Justice of India, he apologised for not paying requisite attention to the listing and posting of matters. In April 2021, when Justice NV Ramana took oath as the 48th Chief Justice of India, 67,279 cases were pending in the Supreme Court. High Courts across the country had 21 per cent of cases pending for over a decade. At a conference in London this year, the chief justice had termed the huge backlog of cases a major problem—over 40 million cases are pending in courts—pendency has increased