The Indian Supreme Court sits in panels and can have up to 31 judges. This chapter explores how the Indian Supreme Court developed its current structure and the impact of this structure on its functioning. It argues that the Supreme Court’s structure has a range of inter-related effects that includes increasing access to the Court, producing a “polyvocal” jurisprudence that destabilizes stare decisis, spurring experimentation among judges, fostering a “Chief Justice dominant” Court, and reducing the perceived partisanship of judges. Mapping the structure of the Court, as well as the Court’s relationship with the rest of the judiciary, helps us appreciate how judges ultimately interpret the law and the Constitution not in isolation, but within a larger judicial architecture.

Following a period of great enthusiasm about the role of public interest litigation (PIL) as a tool for social change in India, there is now skepticism. It is often argued that the stated objective of PILs in the 1980s, to defend the interests of a disadvantaged and marginalized population, has now been lost. Is the skepticism justified? This chapter provides an empirical analysis of beneficiary inequality in the Indian Supreme Court between 2009 and 2014. Based on an analysis of public interest cases at the Supreme Court, the chapter seeks to characterize who uses public interest litigation in India, who wins and who loses, and the policy areas that occupy the Court's PIL docket. In doing so, it discusses broader patterns in the use of public interest litigation in India.