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Research · Federal Shariat Court

Federal Shariat Court Statistics

Aggregate patterns across the published, reasoned judgments of the Federal Shariat Court: caseload composition, the statutes cited most often, who is most often named as respondent, and how judgment volume and bench composition have moved over time.

Every figure below is an aggregate computed across the whole set. No individual judgment, litigant, or case specific detail is reported here, and no judgment is quoted or summarised. To read case specific summaries and holdings, use the Case Law Database. To see who is currently sitting on this court, use Court Benches and Statistics.

Data scope: these figures are computed from the reasoned written judgments the Federal Shariat Court has published on its public portal at www.federalshariatcourt.gov.pk . The set covers 1980 to 2026 and holds 820+ reported judgments.

These are not all the matters the Federal Shariat Court handles. Courts dispose of a large volume of cases through procedural orders, adjournments, dismissals for non prosecution, withdrawals and short orders that are never authored as detailed written judgments. Only the reasoned judgments approved for publication are counted here.

What you are reading is the published precedent surface, not the total caseload. It is the same body of material an advocate would consult by hand when researching a matter, aggregated.

Constitutional Practice
Article 203
Article 203 is the most frequently cited Article of the Constitution, appearing in 96 judgments , ahead of Article 203-D at 24.
Primary Citations
17.6% / 54.2%
17.6% of these judgments cite the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973. 54.2% cite the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860.
Length and Duration
13 pages, 1 yr
The median judgment runs 13 pages and about 2,800 words. The median gap between the year a matter was filed and the year judgment issued is about 1 years.
Bench Composition
25.6%
Of the judgments whose bench could be identified, 25.6% were authored by a single judge, 33.3% by a division bench and 41% by a full or larger bench.

Caseload composition by legal division

Constitutional (17.55%) Criminal (78.33%)
Caseload composition by legal division across 820+ reported judgments of the Federal Shariat Court. Constitutional 17.55%, criminal 78.33%, civil 4.12%.

Most cited statutes

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 869 Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinan... 582 Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 511 Constitution of Pakistan, 1973 173 Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984 101 Prohibition Enforcement Hadd Order, 1979 46 Prohibition Enforcement Hadd Order 4, 1979 23 Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 21 Family Courts Act, 1964 19 Qanooneshahadat Order, 1984 17
The statutes cited most often across these judgments.

Most frequent shariat petition respondents

Federation of Pakistan 57 Government of Pakistan 22 Federal Government of Pakistan 9 Islamic Republic of Pakistan 7 Government of Punjab 4 The Federal Government of Pakistan 3 Federal Government of Pakistan through Secretar... 2 Federal Government through Secretary M/o Law & ... 2 Govt. of Pakistan 2 Federal Government and another 2
The entities most often named as respondent in a shariat petition. Useful as a prior when settling the array of respondents in a fresh petition.

Judgment volume by year

0 25 50 75 100 1980 1982 1984 1987 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 * * 2026
* The most recent years reflect ongoing publishing lag and must not be read as a fall in case volume. A judgment is published months after it is delivered.

Methodology. Judgments are captured from each court's own public portal. Statute names are canonicalised across stylistic variants before counting, so one Act cited six different ways counts as one Act. Constitutional article and Penal Code section frequencies are read from the cited statutes recorded against each judgment. Time from filing to judgment is the judgment year minus the filing year taken from the case number, a proxy that does not reflect docket level dates. Bench size is read from the bench recorded on each judgment, and judgments whose bench could not be identified are excluded from that percentage rather than counted as single judge. Recent years reflect publishing lag and are excluded from any trend statement. Figures last computed 2026-09-08.