Government Bill in Lok Sabha to Increase Supreme Court Bench to 38 Judges | Today’s news
NEW DELHI: Union Law and Justice Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on Monday introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha to increase the number of Supreme Court judges as the government seeks to ease the hearing of cases in the apex court.
The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Bill 2026 seeks Parliament’s approval to increase the number of judges in the Supreme Court to 38, including the Chief Justice of India (CJI), from the current 34.
In May, the Union Cabinet approved a proposal to increase the number of Supreme Court judges, after which the government on June 1 approved the appointment of five new judges to help reduce commissions at the apex court, which primarily deals with complex legal issues.
At present, the bench strength of the apex court is 32, including the CJI. The last time the number of sanctions in the chamber of the Supreme Court, excluding the Chief Justice, was increased in 2019, from 30 to 33.
Appointments to the Supreme Court panel are crucial given the large number of cases decided by the Supreme Court. According to the government’s National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), as many as 92,249 cases are pending in the Supreme Court, of which 35,808 (38%) are less than a year old. According to the NJDG, the oldest case still pending in the court dates back to 1986. India’s Supreme Court disposed of 56,342 cases in 2025 against 60,948 newly filed cases, the data shows.
The Supreme Court collegium, which recommends appointments and transfers of judges to the higher judiciary, is currently headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and includes two senior judges, Justices Vikram Nath and JK Maheshwari.
A puisne judge in a High Court or Supreme Court refers to a judge who is lower in seniority than the Chief Justice of that particular court.
NJDG DATA
Meanwhile, India’s lower courts are still burdened with high pendency. The NJDG data also showed that the country’s district courts have a backlog of 31.15 million criminal cases and 6.13 million civil cases.
So far in 2026, district courts have disposed of 12.89 million cases, the data show, compared with 14.68 million new cases opened in the same period.
Most notably, according to NJDG data, the biggest reason for this growing addiction is the lack of access to legal advice in nearly 6 million cases.
