Understanding Judicial Delay at the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal in India

This paper creates a de novo data-set using publicly available data on cases at the Indian Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT). The paper applies the statistical techniques of hazard models to address questions around case duration at the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT). It describes the patterns in case life-span compares these patterns among groups, and build statistical models of the risk of case completion over time. The paper also finds differences in the probability of case completion between the ITAT benches in Mumbai and Delhi. It also finds that probability of case completion differs by case type. The results point to the need to study case trajectories to better understand the causes of delays in order to design appropriate policy solutions to improve the performance of courts and tribunals.