The retirements in the topmost rung of the judiciary in 2022 would encompass changes in the powerful Supreme Court Collegium and see two new Chief Justices in a span of months.
But the retirements come at a time when the court is in the process of steadying itself after particularly brutal waves of the pandemic. Even as the virus refuses to leave for good, the court continues to grapple with pendency.
The Supreme Court’s statistics show that 70,362 cases are pending with it as on April 1, 2022, though over 19% of them are not ready to be placed before a Bench for judicial hearing as they have not completed the required preliminaries. While 52,110 are admission matters, 18,522 are regular hearing cases. The number of Constitution Bench cases (both main and connected matters) total 422.
