Records & Superlatives

1972–73

The Largest Bench

Thirteen judges

The largest bench in the Supreme Court's history — thirteen judges — heard Kesavananda Bharati. Eleven-judge benches have decided Golak Nath (1967), R.C. Cooper (1970) and T.M.A. Pai (2002).

The Longest Hearings

Kesavananda and Ayodhya

Kesavananda Bharati was heard for 68 days over five months (1972–73), the longest hearing in the Supreme Court's history. The Ayodhya title case (2019), heard for 40 days, is often described as the second-longest.

• Kesavananda: 68 days.
• Ayodhya: 40 days.

The Longest Judgments

Aadhaar and Ayodhya

The Aadhaar judgment (Puttaswamy II, 2018), running to about 1,448 pages, is often cited as the longest judgment of the Supreme Court; the Ayodhya judgment (2019), at about 1,045 pages, is another of the longest.

1951–2023

The Oldest Pending Case

Seventy-two years

A case concerning the liquidation of the Berhampore Bank, filed in the Calcutta High Court on 1 January 1951, was finally disposed of in January 2023, after more than 72 years — then India's oldest pending case.

• Filed 1 January 1951; disposed of January 2023.

1995–

The Longest-Running Supreme Court Case

T.N. Godavarman

The forest case T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India, filed in 1995, has run for three decades, with thousands of interlocutory applications, as the Court uses "continuing mandamus" to supervise forest protection across India.