India Runs One Integrated Court System, From a Supreme Court of 38 Sanctioned Judges Through 25 High Courts to 30,868 District Judicial Posts

India has a single ladder of courts for the whole country, with the Supreme Court at the top, a High Court for each state or group of states in the middle, and district judges below. As of 14 October 2026 the National Judicial Data Grid, the public database of case counts run by the Supreme Court’s e-Committee, showed 95,658 pending cases in the Supreme Court, 65,41,617 in the High Courts and 5,15,26,829 in the district courts. Added together by tuput, that is about 5.8 crore cases.

The Supreme Court describes the arrangement as one of the unique features of the Constitution. India is a federation with separate Union and state governments, and yet it has one integrated system of courts that applies both Union and state laws.

One system for Union and state law

The Seventh Schedule of the Constitution divides law-making between Parliament and the state legislatures into a Union List, a State List and a Concurrent List, a split covered in the schedules article. Courts do not split the same way. A district court in Kerala and one in Punjab both apply central laws and their own state’s laws, and Article 141 says the law declared by the Supreme Court binds all courts in the territory of India. How the Union and the states divide power is covered separately.

The Supreme Court came into existence on 26 January 1950, when the Constitution came into force. It was inaugurated on 28 January 1950 in the Chamber of Princes of the old Parliament building, where the Federal Court, its predecessor, had sat from 1937. It moved to its present building on Tilak Marg on 4 August 1958.

Below it, Article 214 says there shall be a High Court for each state. Article 231 lets Parliament set up one common High Court for two or more states, or for states and a Union territory. The National Judicial Data Grid lists 25 High Courts, and a few are shared. One serves Punjab and Haryana, and one serves the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and of Ladakh.

The Supreme Court has 38 sanctioned judges and three kinds of jurisdiction

The Constitution as adopted fixed the Court at a Chief Justice and seven other judges and let Parliament raise the number (Article 124). The Court’s history page lists the increases: 8 judges in 1950, 11 in 1956, 14 in 1960, 18 in 1978, 26 in 1986, 31 in 2009 and 34 in 2019.

The latest increase came in 2026. The President issued an ordinance on 16 May 2026, using the Article 123 power to make law when Parliament is not sitting. The Bill that replaced it passed the Lok Sabha on 3 August 2026 and the Rajya Sabha on 5 August, according to PRS Legislative Research. The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act, 2026 (Act 14 of 2026) received the President’s assent on 11 August 2026 and is deemed to have come into force on 16 May. It changes the cap on judges other than the Chief Justice from 33 to 37, which makes 38 in all.

The Bill’s Statement of Objects and Reasons gives the reason in numbers. On 1 January 2026 there were 92,101 cases pending in the Supreme Court. In 2025 the Court received 75,410 fresh matters and disposed of 65,615, working at near-full strength of 34 judges since 2019. The statement adds that more judges would let the Chief Justice of India constitute Constitution Benches regularly. Deccan Chronicle reported on 5 October 2026 that three appointments would lift working strength from 34 to 37, leaving one vacancy against the sanctioned 38.

The Court’s jurisdiction page names three kinds of authority. Its original jurisdiction includes Article 32, the right to approach the Court directly to enforce fundamental rights, and Article 131, which gives it exclusive power over disputes between the Union and states or between states. Article 32 and the other fundamental rights have their own article. Its appellate jurisdiction covers appeals from High Courts in the cases Articles 132 to 134 set out, and Article 136 lets it grant special leave to appeal against a judgment of any court or tribunal in India, except those under armed forces law. Its advisory jurisdiction under Article 143 lets the President refer a question of law or fact for its opinion.

Most benches have two or three judges. Article 145(3) requires at least five judges to decide a case on the interpretation of the Constitution or to hear an Article 143 reference. The 13-judge bench in the Kesavananda Bharati case is the largest the Court has assembled.

Twenty-five High Courts, with writ powers wider than the Supreme Court’s

Article 226 lets every High Court issue writs, which are court orders directed at a person or authority, to enforce fundamental rights “and for any other purpose”. Article 32 reaches only the rights in Part III, so a High Court can hear challenges on grounds the Supreme Court’s Article 32 route does not cover. Under Article 227 each High Court has superintendence over all courts and tribunals in its territory, and under Article 215 it is a court of record that can punish contempt of itself.

The Law Minister’s reply to the Rajya Sabha on 23 July 2026, as reported by ThePrint, gave a sanctioned strength of 1,122 High Court judges as of 1 July 2026, with 781 working and 341 posts vacant, a vacancy rate of 30.39%. Allahabad is the largest High Court, with 160 sanctioned posts and 108 judges in place. Meghalaya was at full strength, 4 of 4.

A High Court judge must be an Indian citizen who has held judicial office for ten years or been a High Court advocate for ten years (Article 217). Judges retire at 62, against 65 in the Supreme Court. Under Article 224 the President can appoint additional judges for up to two years when a court’s business or arrears rise temporarily.

Who appoints the judges, and why the collegium is contested

The Constitution says the President appoints Supreme Court and High Court judges by warrant (Articles 124 and 217). In its original wording the President did so after consulting the Chief Justice of India and other judges, and for a High Court also the Governor and the High Court’s Chief Justice. Two decisions of the Supreme Court gave that consultation its working form. In 1993 a nine-judge bench read “consultation” as concurrence with the Chief Justice and the two senior-most judges, according to the Supreme Court Observer. In 1998, answering a reference from the President under Article 143, another nine-judge bench settled the group the Chief Justice must consult at four senior-most judges for the Supreme Court and two for a High Court. The Court quotes that opinion in its 2008 judgment in Shanti Bhushan v Union of India. The group is called the collegium, and the word does not appear in the Constitution.

Parliament tried to replace it. The Ninety-ninth Amendment, in force from 13 April 2015, substituted recommendations by a National Judicial Appointments Commission under Article 124A. On 16 October 2015 a five-judge Constitution Bench struck it down by four votes to one. The majority held that the new body did not secure judicial primacy in appointments and so breached the basic structure, and it revived the collegium. Justice Chelameshwar dissented. He agreed with the Attorney General, Mukul Rohatgi, who had argued that the amendment left the basic structure intact, and he said two members of the Commission could block an unworthy candidate. SCC Online records both positions, and the basic structure article covers the doctrine itself.

Appointments also run on a timetable. The Memorandum of Procedure, quoted in Shanti Bhushan, says the Chief Justice of a High Court should send his views on names to the state’s Chief Minister at least six months before a vacancy. The Law Minister told the Rajya Sabha on 23 July 2026 that this limit is rarely observed, according to ThePrint.

Removal is harder than appointment. A judge of either court can be removed only by a presidential order after an address from each House of Parliament, supported by a majority of the House’s total membership and two-thirds of those present and voting, on grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity (Article 124(4), applied to High Court judges by Article 217).

District and subordinate courts, where most cases begin

Each state is divided into judicial districts, and the District and Sessions Judge is the highest judicial authority in a district, according to the Supreme Court. That judge presides over the principal civil court of the district and can try every offence, including those punishable with death. Below sit civil judges (called Munsifs or Sub-Judges in some states) and, on the criminal side, Chief Judicial Magistrates and Judicial Magistrates. Some states also have village courts such as Nyaya Panchayats and Gram Nyayalayas for petty local disputes.

The Constitution splits control of this level between the state and the High Court. Under Article 233 the Governor appoints district judges in consultation with the High Court, and a person from outside the service must have been an advocate for seven years and be recommended by the High Court. Article 234 has the Governor recruit other judicial officers under rules made after consulting the State Public Service Commission and the High Court. Article 235 gives the High Court control over posting, promotion and leave.

The Law Minister’s Rajya Sabha reply on 23 July 2026 gave the position as of 17 July 2026: 30,868 sanctioned judicial officer posts in district courts, 23,558 filled and 7,310 vacant, a vacancy rate of 23.68%, according to ThePrint.

Tribunals sit beside the courts. Part XIVA of the Constitution, inserted by the 42nd Amendment with effect from 3 January 1977, lets Parliament create administrative tribunals for the service disputes of public employees (Article 323A), and lets Parliament or a state legislature create tribunals for matters such as tax, foreign exchange and industrial disputes (Article 323B). In L. Chandra Kumar v Union of India, decided on 18 March 1997 by seven judges, the Supreme Court held that the High Courts’ writ power under Articles 226 and 227 and its own under Article 32 form part of the basic structure. Tribunal decisions therefore go first to a Division Bench of the High Court, according to a case summary on Court Kutchehry.

What the National Judicial Data Grid shows

The grid is a database of case status, orders and judgments from the computerised district and subordinate courts, created under the e-Courts project, the Press Information Bureau explained in September 2023. The e-Courts project has run since 2007. Phase I (2011 to 2015) computerised 14,249 district and subordinate courts, and Phase II (2015 to 2023) brought that to 18,735. The Cabinet approved Phase III as a four-year scheme with an outlay of Rs 7,210 crore. The figures below were read from the grid on 14 October 2026.

• The Supreme Court had 95,658 pending cases, 73,250 civil and 22,408 criminal. In the last month it received 7,722 and disposed of 6,506.
• The High Courts had 65,41,617 pending cases, 45,32,612 civil and 20,09,005 criminal. Of these, 14,76,195 (23%) were more than ten years old. Last month they received 2,42,191 and disposed of 2,11,713.
• The district courts had 5,15,26,829 pending cases, 1,12,20,972 civil and 4,03,05,857 criminal. Of these, 47,07,796 (9%) were more than ten years old, and 40% were less than a year old. Last month they received 41,40,538 and disposed of 34,15,315.

At every level, more cases came in last month than were decided.