In defence of court holidays

Indian Express

a day ago

Written by Shubham Shukla and Kartikey Singh
On May 26, as the Supreme Court (SC) began its seven-week 'summer recess', now officially termed 'Partial Court Working Days' (PCWD), critics resort to familiar complaints about 'judicial holidays' amid rising case pendency. However, this prevailing narrative misses the point. These breaks are not indulgences; they are structural safeguards, providing a critical breathing space that sustains 'judicial reasoning' in a system strained by relentless caseloads.
Though rooted in colonial-era judges' discomfort with Indian summers and a craving for Christmas breaks, judicial vacations today serve a far more vital purpose. They enable intellectual rejuvenation, meticulous 'judgment writing', and deep legal research.
Case pendency and blame game
India's judicial backlog — over 4.5 crore cases, as per the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) — is undeniably serious. But to attribute this crisis to judges' vacations is both analytically lazy and empirically indefensible, as also acknowledged in 2023 by the then Union Law Minister. A data-driven study based on Bombay High Court (HC) records found that court vacations have no significant impact on either 'disposal rates' or the time taken to resolve cases. This finding is not surprising when one considers institutional realities.
India's SC functions almost year-round, hearing 'oral arguments' every weekday except during the mid-year and winter breaks, unlike many of its global counterparts. With 190 sitting days annually, India's apex court stands among the hardest-working top courts across the world. By comparison, according to the Supreme Court Observer, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) sits for just 68 days, the High Court of Australia for 97, South Africa's Constitutional Court for 128, the UK SC for 149, Israel's apex court for 159, and Bangladesh's for 183. Importantly, India's top court doesn't just sit more often, it hears far more cases. In the first half of 2025 alone, nearly 21,000 cases were placed before the SC, dwarfing SCOTUS's annual intake of 5,000-7,000 and leaving courts in the UK, Australia, and South Africa far behind.
Even when it comes to non-sitting days, India fares better than most: The SC has 175 non-working days, compared to the US (297), Australia (268), South Africa (237), the UK (216), Israel (206), and Bangladesh (182). Yet, despite having more holidays and fewer sitting days, these other courts do not grapple with the scale of pendency that afflicts India.
The reason is structural. The judicial systems of other countries limit access to the apex court through strict docket control, selective case admission, and robust lower court infrastructure. India's SC, by contrast, embodies a more expansive judicial philosophy, functioning both as a constitutional court and as the court of last resort for a vast and diverse population. This broad access — extending even to service, bail, and land disputes — reflects a democratic commitment to judicial access, though it inevitably contributes to a much heavier caseload.
The relentless grind of a judge
The popular perception of judges enjoying excessive leisure during vacations is a profound misconception. It fails to account for the intense, often invisible workload they undertake daily —work that extends far beyond courtroom hours. Unlike most professionals, judges rarely take personal leave while courts are in session, reserving it only for dire emergencies or serious illness.
The real labour of adjudication begins after the court rises. A recent example comes from Bombay High Court's Justice Madhav Jamdar, who dictated an 85-page Transfer of Property Act judgment in open court on December 19, 2024. But it was uploaded on the HC website on 30 May 2025 — almost six months later. In his own order, he recorded that, even while conducting daily hearings for more than two hours after court hours, he still corrects and signs orders until 11:30 pm, reads case papers until 2:00 am, and works on weekends and holidays to clear his docket. This intense schedule lays bare the sheer volume of judicial labours beyond courtroom hours, demonstrating that judges every day need to balance exhaustive hearings, voluminous drafting, and meticulous editing against the limits of time.
Notably, the length of a judgment often reflects the complexity of the legal questions involved. The most significant cases — those concerning privacy, reservation, or federalism — frequently run into hundreds of pages and shape jurisprudence for decades. These are not merely legal puzzles; they involve relentless public scrutiny, have zero margin for error, and impact millions of lives. Crafting such judgments demands immense intellectual labour: Exhaustive research, deep contemplation, parsing voluminous records, engaging with precedents, and rigorous deliberation within the Bench. Intellectual depth is paramount, and rushing such tasks in a state of 'cognitive exhaustion' risks shallow reasoning, conflicting precedent, and long-term jurisprudential damage — a far greater injustice than a well-considered pause.
This is not a matter of personal preference; it is a clinical imperative. The stakes in many SC and HC cases are existential — the legality of a student's arrest, the future of a minor in a custody battle, or the constitutional validity of a statute. Importantly, judges hear arguments in court for an average of 7–8 hours a day. Without structured time to decompress and reflect, impaired cognitive function becomes inevitable, increasing the risk of judicial error and subsequent reversals on appeal.
Judicial vacations thus serve as a necessary prophylactic. They provide an opportunity to recalibrate, catch up on judgment writing, and engage with wider reading, including interdisciplinary scholarship in economics, sociology, or political theory that increasingly informs welfare jurisprudence. Several judges have publicly acknowledged the necessity of these breaks. Former Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, speaking at a public event last year, noted that judges remain deeply committed even on weekends — visiting HCs, attending Bar events, or engaging in legal aid work.
More importantly, without adequate, structured breaks, judges face serious risks of burnout, loneliness, and compassion fatigue. Empirical studies on 'judicial stress' show elevated levels of secondary trauma and emotional exhaustion. This is not just a personal or institutional burden. If left unaddressed, it may reduce judicial capacity, delay adjudication, and — perhaps most dangerously — erode public confidence in the judiciary's ability to deliver reasoned, impartial, and humane justice. Moreover, these breaks also serve as a crucial respite for advocates, who routinely operate under intense pressure due to rigid procedural deadlines and demanding court schedules.
During vacations, far from 'shut down', the judicial functioning continues through Partial Court Working Days Benches, during which the Registry — the court's administrative backbone — also remains active. Urgent cases, especially those involving life and liberty, are routinely heard, ensuring that fundamental rights are not suspended during breaks. Blaming vacations for judicial delays ignores the real issues: Imperfect case scheduling, routine adjournments, chronic vacancies, and outdated infrastructure. As President Droupadi Murmu aptly noted last year, the deeper malaise lies in the 'black coat syndrome'— that vacations neither cause nor solve. Instead of targeting judicial breaks, policy focus should shift to genuine reforms: Appointing more judges, overhauling infrastructure, modernising procedures, and promoting alternative dispute resolution.
The writers are lawyers based in New Delhi