National Court of Appeal

The National Court of Appeal (NCA) is a long-proposed structural reform of India's judicial architecture — a multi-bench intermediate appellate court between the High Courts and the Supreme Court that would hear routine appellate work, freeing the Supreme Court to focus on constitutional and substantial questions of law. The proposal was articulated by the Law Commission of India's 125th Report (1988) titled 'Supreme Court — A Fresh Look', revived in the 229th Report (2009) titled 'Need for division of the Supreme Court into a Constitution Bench at Delhi and Cassation Benches in four regions at Delhi, Chennai/Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai', and championed by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer in articles and speeches. The proposal envisages regional benches (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata) to improve geographic access. The Supreme Court would retain Constitution Bench matters (Article 145(3)), select appeals, and original jurisdiction. Implementation has stalled — politically because Article 136 dilution requires constitutional amendment; jurisprudentially because the SC's plenary appellate role is seen as integral to constitutional unity.

• 1 Origin: Law Commission 125th Report (1988)
• 2 Revived: Law Commission 229th Report (2009)
• 3 Champion: Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer (articles, speeches)
• 4 Function: hear routine appellate matters between HCs and SC
• 5 Structure: regional benches (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata)
• 6 SC retained role: Constitution Bench (Article 145(3)) + select appeals
• 7 Status: not implemented; constitutional and political debates ongoing
• 8 Article 136 (SLP) dilution requires constitutional amendment
• 9 SC backlog (May 2026): ~80,000 cases; ~60-65% are SLPs

The Hindu's May 29, 2026 op-ed argued that adding 5 new SC judges (from the May 27 Collegium recommendation) without operationalising the NCA will not dent the ~80,000-case backlog — the real bottleneck is admission-stage filtering, not judge strength.