The Supreme Court of India: A People’s Court?

The consensus among scholars is that the Indian Supreme Court no longer acts as a court for the common person. Contrary to this view, we argue that the Court is still a court of the people in certain ways. We analyse by party and case type all cases decided by the Supreme Court from 2010 to 2014 under its special leave petition jurisdiction, and published in the case reporter Supreme Court Cases. The Court exercises significant discretion when deciding whether or not to admit cases pursuant to this appellate jurisdiction. However, we do not have information about the parties and types of cases that seek and are granted admission. To overcome this gap, we use the hit rate analysis method for deducing whether or not the Court grants easier access at the admissions stage to certain parties and case types. We find that the Court favours for admission individuals over the government in civil cases and defendants over the prosecution in criminal cases. It also favours cases that involve constitutional challenges over cases that don’t. Taken together, we argue that in these contexts, the court tends to favour weaker parties over stronger ones for access to the Court.