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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 880+ 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 100+ judgments, ahead of Article 203-D at 10+.
Primary Citations
18.8% / 52%
18.8% of these judgments cite the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973. 52% 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 year.
Bench Composition
24.2%
Of the judgments whose bench could be identified, 24.2% were authored by a single judge, 32% by a division bench and 43.8% by a full or larger bench.

Caseload composition by legal division

Caseload composition by legal division across 880+ reported judgments of the Federal Shariat Court.

Most cited statutes

  1. Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 800+
  2. Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinan... 500+
  3. Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 500+
  4. Constitution of Pakistan, 1973 200+
  5. Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984 100+
  6. Prohibition Enforcement Hadd Order, 1979 10+
  7. Prohibition Enforcement Hadd Order 4, 1979 10+
  8. Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 10+
  9. Family Courts Act, 1964 10+
  10. Qanooneshahadat Order, 1984 10+
The statutes cited most often across these judgments.

Most frequent shariat petition respondents

  1. Federation of Pakistan 10+
  2. Government of Pakistan 10+
  3. Federal Government of Pakistan 9
  4. Government of Punjab 7
  5. Islamic Republic of Pakistan 7
  6. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan 3
  7. The Federal Government of Pakistan 3
  8. Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan 2
  9. Secretary, Government of NWFP, Excise & Taxatio... 2
  10. Attorney General of Islamic Republic of Pakistan 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

* 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 2026-09-12.