(PTI)
Against the backdrop of rising cases in the Supreme Court, the Union Cabinet approved increasing the number of judges in the top court from the present 30 to 33, excluding the chief justice of India, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said. At present, the sanctioned strength of the apex court is 30, excluding the CJI. Once the bill to increase the number of judges gets parliamentary nod, the number of judges would go up to 33, excluding the CJI. The strength will be 34, including the CJI, the minister told reporters after the cabinet meeting.
At present, the Supreme Court is working with its full sanctioned strength of 31, including the CJI. The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956 was last amended in 2009 to increase the judges’ strength from 25 to 30 (excluding the CJI). The decision of the Cabinet came days after Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to increase the number of judges in the top court. According to a written reply by the law ministry to a Rajya Sabha question on 11 July, 59,331 cases are pending in the top court. Due to paucity of judges, the required number of constitution benches to decide important cases involving questions of law were not being formed, the CJI said.
