The final word: Succinct to expansive, SC verdicts in 2025 spanned varying lengths

IN 2025, the sublime margaret court crossed a mathematical milepost as o'er 1,400 judgments were delivered in a single year. Yet amid this volume, another, less discussed trend has quietly taken shape — the extraordinary and widening variation in the length of its judgments.At one end sits Justice JB Pardiwala’s April judgment in the Tamil Nadu Governor case, a sprawling 415-page ruling that laid down strict timelines for governors and the president to act on state legislation and introduced the controversial concept of “deemed assent” in cases of inordinate delay. It is the longest judgment delivered by the Supreme Court in 2025.On the other end of the spectrum, barely seven months later, a five-judge constitution bench effectively wiped out the operative core of that ruling — not with another tome, but with a succinctly reasoned 111-page judgment. In November, answering a presidential reference, the court held that neither governors nor the President could be bound by judicially imposed timelines for granting assent to bills, warning that such directions violate the separation of powers. The court held that the April ruling had created a “state of confusion and doubt” and required an “authoritative opinion” from a larger bench.The contrast was stark. A judgment less than a quarter the length nullified the constitutional foundation of a much longer one. However, this was not an isolated instance.Justice Pardiwala features frequently among the year’s longest rulings. Justice BV Nagarathna’s 321-page judgment in Asianet Satellite Communications Ltd ranks second, followed by Justice Pardiwala’s 269-page ruling in Harshbir Singh Pannu. Another of his decisions ran to 189 pages, while seven of the 10 lengthiest judgments delivered in 2025 were authored by him, including in DRI vs Raj Kumar Arora & Ors.By contrast, constitution bench judgments, which are meant to authoritatively settle constitutional law, were relatively fewer and often more restrained in length. Only four constitution bench verdicts were delivered this year. Apart from the presidential reference (111 pages), the bench ruled in November that length of service cannot justify a separate quota for judicial officers seeking elevation to the higher judicial service (59 pages). In October, a constitution bench reshaped district judge recruitment rules in a 139-page judgment. Earlier in April, a 4-1 ruling on modification of arbitral awards ran to 190 pages.The imbalance is telling. Lengthy judgments are increasingly emerging from smaller benches, while constitution benches, despite their institutional gravity, are comparatively concise.Historically, India’s apex court has not shied away from verbosity. The longest judgment ever delivered by the Supreme Court remains the 2018 Puttaswamy (Aadhaar) verdict, stretching to 1,448 pages. It surpassed the 1,045-page Ayodhya judgment (2019) and the 1,042-page NJAC ruling (2015). Even earlier, the Kesavananda Bharati (1973) verdict on basic structure ran to about 700 pages, while SP Gupta (1981), dealing with judicial appointments, extended to around 830 pages.But globally, constitutional courts have moved in the opposite direction. Judgments of the US Supreme Court and the UK Supreme Court — both frequently cited by Indian courts — are concise. The UK Supreme Court’s landmark Parliament Prorogation judgment (2019) ran to just 24 pages. Marbury vs Madison (1803), which established judicial review, was decided in 18 pages. Texas vs Johnson (1989), on flag burning and free speech, took 43 pages. Lawrence vs Texas (2003), which decriminalised sodomy, ran to 49 pages — compared to the 493-page judgment in Navtej Singh Johar (2018) on similar issues in India. Even Roe vs Wade (1973) used just 66 pages in granting the constitutional right to choose abortion, while the US Supreme Court’s deeply divided 2022 decision overturned the previous ruling.The debate over judicial length is not new. In his 1985 Tagore Law Lectures, former Supreme Court judge HR Khanna, remembered for his lone dissent during the Emergency, warned against unnecessarily long judgments burdened with repetitive citations and literary excess. “The function of a judge while deciding a case is not the same as that of a research scholar writing a thesis,” he said, stressing that courts must cut through conflicting arguments to articulate the law with precision.The issue gains added significance as the court enters a phase of leadership transition. When Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud held office between November 2022 and November 2024, the Supreme Court delivered at least 16 constitution bench judgments, aided by the relative length of his tenure. Justice Surya Kant assumed the CJI’s office in November 2025, acknowledging the challenge posed by over 90,000 pending cases in the top court. “Many matters can’t be taken up before high courts and lower courts because related issues are pending here,” he told Hindustan Times on the eve of his appointment, promising to prioritise older and blocked matters and set up benches for their resolutions.Justice Kant has about 14 months in office, until February 2027. Beyond that, Justice Pardiwala — the author of many of the year’s longest judgments — is in line to become Chief Justice of India in May 2028, with a tenure of over two years, among the longest in recent memory.