When Justice Pankaj Mithal ascended to the Supreme Court of India in February 2023, the legal fraternity gained not merely a judge but a jurist of uncommon literary sensibility. Over a tenure of three years and four months, during which he authored 127 judgements spanning criminal, civil, property, service, and constitutional law, Justice Mithal carved for himself a distinct identity: that of a judge who believed the law must be written so that it may be understood, and understood so that it may be obeyed.
Justice Mithal was recommended to the Supreme Court of India by the Collegium in December 2022 and elevated in February 2023, alongside Justices Sanjay Karol, P.V. Sanjay Kumar, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, and Manoj Misra. He brought with him a rich judicial pedigree from the Allahabad High Court, where he had served as Chief Justice, and before that as a judge for many years. His judgements at the Supreme Court reflected a judge fully formed: one who wrote with the precision of a craftsman and the persuasion of an advocate.
On the occasion of his retirement, it is appropriate to assess the intellectual and doctrinal contributions he made to Indian jurisprudence. The judgements examined below represent not merely legal decisions but statements of constitutional philosophy, social sensitivity, and institutional discipline, qualities that defined his judicial career.
I. Sub-Classification Among Scheduled Castes: State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh (2024)
Perhaps no constitutional question in recent Indian legal history has generated as much scholarly controversy as the question of whether states may sub-classify Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the purpose of providing reservations. The seven-judge Constitution Bench in State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, decided in 2024, settled this question affirmatively, overruling the earlier position laid down by a five-judge bench in E.V. Chinnaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2004), which had held that Scheduled Castes form a homogeneous class and cannot be further subdivided by state legislatures.
Justice Mithal authored a concurring opinion that grappled with the core tension at the heart of the reservation debate: the risk that reservation benefits, designed for the most disadvantaged, are captured by the relatively better-off members of a Scheduled Caste, leaving those at the bottom of the social hierarchy perpetually unserved. His opinion expressed with clarity the need to extend the benefit of reservation to the most backward classes within the broader SC/ST categories, rather than allowing already-uplifted segments to continue monopolising the quota.
Significantly, Justice Mithal espoused the introduction of the “creamy layer” principle within Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, a concept previously confined by the Supreme Court to Other Backward Classes pursuant to Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992). He did not, however, advocate for the immediate application of this principle; rather, he clarified that the existing system of reservation must prevail until a new, constitutionally coherent approach is evolved through deliberation and policy.
The significance of this concurring opinion lies in its intellectual courage. The creamy layer argument in the context of SCs/STs is politically contentious, and Justice Mithal’s willingness to articulate it in a considered judicial opinion reflects the hallmark of a judge committed to constitutional principle over institutional timidity. His view aligns with the deeper logic of Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution, which permit classification and sub-classification in the service of substantive equality, not formal parity. The ultimate aim of reservation, he emphasised, is social elevation, not the perpetuation of electoral categories.
II. No Automatic Vacation of Stay Orders: High Court Bar Association, Allahabad v. State of UP (2024)
In High Court Bar Association, Allahabad v. State of Uttar Pradesh, decided in 2024 by a seven-judge Constitution Bench, the Supreme Court revisited and substantially modified the direction given in Asian Resurfacing of Road Agency Pvt. Ltd. v. Central Bureau of Investigation (2018), where a three-judge bench had held that all stays of trial court proceedings granted by High Courts would automatically stand vacated after six months unless extended. That direction, widely criticised by practitioners and academics alike, had created procedural chaos, coerced litigants, and undermined the judicial independence of High Courts.
Justice Mithal authored a concurring opinion in which he articulated a practical and pragmatic approach over a technical one, a phrase that encapsulates the broader judicial philosophy visible across his tenure. He held that a stay, once granted, would not automatically be vacated merely on the expiry of a stipulated period unless an application seeking such vacation is filed by the concerned party and adjudicated upon. The right to apply for vacation, he made clear, does not translate into automatic vacation by efflux of time.
The reasoning is constitutionally sound. A stay order issued by a competent court is a judicial act. Its unilateral extinction by time-lapse, without fresh judicial application of mind, reduces the court to an administrative timer rather than a deliberative institution. Justice Mithal’s opinion restores the essential character of judicial orders as exercises of reasoned jurisdiction. It also prevents the injustice of parties losing validly obtained interim relief not because the law has changed or their case has weakened, but merely because time has run out.
This judgement has practical implications of enormous scope. Thousands of matters in High Courts across the country had been affected by the Asian Resurfacing direction. The Constitution Bench’s ruling, including Justice Mithal’s endorsement of procedural pragmatism, has restored a measure of certainty and fairness to interim relief jurisprudence in India.
III. Notification of Waqf Properties: Salem Muslim Burial Ground Protection Committee v. State of Tamil Nadu (2023)
In one of his earlier judgements at the Supreme Court, Justice Mithal sat with Justice V. Ramasubramanian in a Division Bench that decided a significant question under the Waqf Act, 1954 in Salem Muslim Burial Ground Protection Committee v. State of Tamil Nadu. The question before the Bench was whether a valid notification of a Waqf property under Section 5 of the Waqf Act, 1954 could be issued without a preliminary survey of the property under Section 4 of the same Act.
The Bench answered in the negative. A valid Section 5 notification, which formally records a property as Waqf in the State Gazette, cannot be issued unless preceded by a proper preliminary survey under Section 4. The mandatory survey is not a procedural formality but a substantive prerequisite: it enables the identification, verification, and documentation of properties that qualify as Waqf, ensuring that the notification rests on an empirical foundation.
The Bench went further to note that in the absence of a valid creation of a Waqf, a property may cease to be recognised as such under the Act. This is a critical clarification in a legal landscape where disputes over Waqf property notifications have proliferated, often with communities, state governments, and private parties contesting the factual and procedural basis of notifications issued decades earlier.
The judgement reinforces the principle that the administrative machinery of the state must function lawfully even when conferring protection or recognition upon religiously significant properties. The procedural requirements of the Waqf Act are not obstacles to the protection of Waqf property; they are the very mechanisms through which such protection is legitimised. Justice Mithal’s concurrence in this ruling reflects his consistent insistence that legal outcomes be grounded in process as well as substance.
IV. Honorarium to Contractual Teachers as a Fundamental Rights Issue: U.P. Junior High School Council Instructor Welfare Association v. State of U.P. (2026)
In U.P. Junior High School Council Instructor Welfare Association v. State of Uttar Pradesh, decided in 2026, Justice Mithal sitting with Justice P.B. Varale delivered a judgement that illuminates how constitutional rights operate as floors, not ceilings, in the realm of labour and employment. The case concerned teachers employed on a contractual basis in junior high schools in Uttar Pradesh who were being paid a fixed honorarium significantly below the statutory minimum wage.
The Division Bench directed an increase in the honorarium, holding that a fixed payment below the minimum wage is not merely a statutory violation but amounts to forced labour, prohibited under Article 23 of the Constitution of India. Article 23 prohibits traffic in human beings and begar and other similar forms of forced labour. The Supreme Court has, in a consistent line of authority beginning with People’s Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India (1982), held that requiring a person to work for remuneration below the minimum wage is a form of forced labour within the meaning of Article 23, since the compulsion may arise from economic necessity and social vulnerability rather than physical coercion.
The more significant holding of the Bench addressed the question of the legal status of teachers who continued to perform duties beyond their contractual period. The Bench held that teachers who continued working after the expiry of their contractual terms, performing functions equivalent to those of regular teachers, must be deemed permanent employees. This doctrine of deemed permanence, grounded in functional equivalence and the protection against economic exploitation, strikes at the practice, common across Indian states, of deploying contractual labour in positions that are structurally permanent, thereby avoiding regularisation obligations and statutory wage protections.
Justice Mithal’s approach in this case reflects a humane reading of the Constitution, one that refuses to allow technical contractual labels to obscure the substantive reality of employment relationships. The judgement is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the regularisation claims of contractual teachers across other states as well, and represents one of the more socially consequential decisions of his tenure.
V. Widowed Daughter-in-Law as a Dependent: Kanchana Rai v. Geeta Sharma (2026)
In Kanchana Rai v. Geeta Sharma, Justice Mithal sitting with Justice S.V. Bhatti addressed a question of personal law and constitutional equality: whether a widowed daughter-in-law constitutes a “dependent” under Section 21 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956, and is accordingly entitled to maintenance from the estate of her deceased father-in-law.
The Division Bench held in the affirmative. Section 21 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act defines “dependants” for the purpose of maintenance claims against a Hindu’s estate. The Bench read the provision as encompassing a widowed daughter-in-law, given the underlying legislative intent to protect those who are economically dependent upon a Hindu male’s household and estate.
Crucially, the Bench held that a restrictive interpretation of Section 21, one that excludes the widowed daughter-in-law, would fail the constitutional test under Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to equality before law and equal protection of laws. The constitutional dimension of this holding is significant: it treats the right to maintenance not as a matter of statutory charity but as a matter of constitutional entitlement, subject to the mandate of non-arbitrary treatment.
The practical context of this judgement is important to appreciate. A widowed daughter-in-law who has lost her husband and has no independent income source is among the most economically vulnerable individuals within a Hindu joint family structure. To hold that she is not a “dependent” under the Act, and therefore entitled to no claim on the estate of the family patriarch, would produce an outcome so manifestly unjust as to be constitutionally untenable. Justice Mithal’s opinion gives judicial voice to this structural vulnerability and provides a workable legal remedy.
VI. Modification of Decrees by Executing Courts: Maurice W. Innis v. Lily Kazrooni (2026)
The final notable judgement under review, Maurice W. Innis v. Lily Kazrooni, is a study in judicial discipline and institutional restraint. A Division Bench of Justices Mithal and Varale restated and reinforced the foundational principle that an Executing Court must execute a decree as it stands and cannot go beyond its jurisdiction to modify the terms of the decree being executed.
Justice Mithal wrote that the decree must be executed “in its term and tenor,” an expression that captures both the literal content and the contextual spirit of the original adjudication. The only exception to this rule is where the decree is a nullity, that is, where the court that passed it lacked the jurisdiction to do so, rendering the decree void ab initio and therefore incapable of execution.
This holding is important for several reasons. First, it preserves the integrity of the appellate and review process: a decree can be challenged, modified, or set aside only through the appropriate appellate or revisional mechanism, not through the sideways route of an Executing Court’s reinterpretation of its terms. Second, it protects decree-holders from the insecurity of having the substance of their hard-won judicial decree altered at the execution stage by a court of inferior jurisdiction. Third, it reinforces the principle of finality of adjudication, a cornerstone of the civil justice system.
The judgement also implicitly addresses a practical problem that has long troubled execution proceedings in India: the tendency of judgment-debtors to litigate the merits of a decree at the execution stage by raising objections that are in effect appeals in disguise. By firmly restating the limits of an Executing Court’s jurisdiction, Justice Mithal’s opinion provides a clear doctrinal tool to resist such manoeuvres.
Conclusion: The Judicial Legacy of Justice Pankaj Mithal
Across these six judgements, a coherent judicial personality emerges. Justice Pankaj Mithal was a judge who believed that law must serve people, not merely govern them. He was willing to engage with constitutional values directly, as in his treatment of Article 23 in the teachers’ case and Article 14 in the maintenance case, rather than treating them as rhetorical ornaments to be invoked at the end of an already-completed analysis. He was scrupulous about procedure not as an end in itself but as the mechanism through which substantive rights are given effect, visible in his opinions on Waqf notification and Executing Court jurisdiction alike.
His literary sensibility, noted by colleagues and commentators throughout his tenure, was not mere embellishment. It reflected a belief that judicial reasoning must be accessible: that a judgement which cannot be read and understood by the citizen it affects has failed in a fundamental communicative duty. In this respect, Justice Mithal’s body of work stands as both a legal contribution and an argument for a certain style of judicial writing: clear, principled, and humane.
At his retirement, the Supreme Court of India loses a jurist who understood, as few do, that the law is not merely a body of rules but a living compact between citizens and the state, one that must be constantly renewed through the quality of judicial reasoning. Justice Mithal’s 127 judgements are his contribution to that renewal.
This article is based on judgements authored by Justice Pankaj Mithal during his tenure at the Supreme Court of India. All case citations are as reported in official records.
