Why Gov increased Super court judges number ??

 Why in news ?

President Droupadi Murmu has promulgated an ordinance increasing the number of judges in the Supreme Court to 37 — excluding the Chief Justice of India.

CONDITION IN INDIA

Despite functioning at its full strengthof 34 judges, the Supreme Court’s (SC) case pendency reached a record high of 88,417 in August 2025, with a disposal rate of 80.04%.

• About 63.3 lakh cases are pending in the High Courts (HCs), and nearly 4.6 crore in district and subordinate courts, bringing India’s total case pendency to over 5 crore.

What are the Key Reasons of High Case Pendency in Indian Courts?

Mnemonic - LACK 

• L- Low Judge-to-Population Ratio: India has just 15 judges per million people, far below the 1987Law Commission’s recommendation of 50. 
  • In comparison, the US has 150 judges per million, while Europe averaged 220 per million in 2022.
• A- Absence of Effective ADR: Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms such as mediation, arbitration, and conciliation remain largely untapped, despite their potential to ease judicial backlog
• C- Court Vacancies & Infrastructural Laps: The India Justice Report 2025 notes that the judiciary has over 5,600 vacancies across all levels, with High Courts recording a 33% vacancy rate in 2025.
  • Limited courtrooms, shortage of staff, weak ICT systems, absence of proper case management hinder timely justice.
• K- Keen Government Litigation: Nearly 50% of pending casesinvolve government departments. 
  • In 2018, the SC criticised the Centre for filing frivolous and repetitive appeals.

The May 16 Gazette notification says “Parliament is not in session and the President is satisfied that the circumstances exist which render it necessary for her to take immediate action [issue of ordinance]”.

The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Ordinance, 2026, has been promulgated in accordance with the powers of the President under Article 123 of the Constitution. The ordinance will be placed in both Houses of Parliament when it convenes. It will cease to operate if six weeks expire without any resolution passed on it after the reassembly of Parliament or if resolutions are passed in both Houses of Parliament disapproving the ordinance.

The President can withdraw the ordinance at any time.

Strength crisis

The ordinance has amended Section 2 of the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956 to replace the word “thirty-three” with “thirty-seven”.

The promulgation has happened nearly two weeks after the Union Cabinet approved the proposal to increase the number of Supreme Court judges. With the ordinance in place, the total sanctioned judicial strength in the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice of India, will rise from 34 to 38.

The move is seen as a step towards tiding over the continuing crisis of pendency plaguing the court for years now, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, when the facility of e-filing of cases caught on.

The current backlog is over 93,000 cases.

The backlog is threatening to reach six figures even as the court is going into summer recess. or “partial working days”, in June.

Six-year hiatus

The government’s approval for more judges in the Supreme Court had come after a six-year hiatus. Parliament had last amended Section 2 of the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956 in 2019, raising the sanctioned strength from 30 to 33, excluding the Chief Justice of India.

At present, there are two judicial vacancies in the top court. These are of the previous Chief Justice of India, Justice B.R. Gavai, who retired in November 2025, and Justice Rajesh Bindal, who completed office in April 2026.

Three more judges are scheduled to retire in 2026. Justices J.K. Maheshwari and Pankaj Mithal will end their tenure in June, and Justice Sanjay Karol in August.

The Framers of the Constitution had originally in Article 124(1) envisaged a Supreme Court consisting of the Chief Justice of India and “not more than seven judges” until “Parliament by law prescribes a larger number”,

The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act 1956, as originally enacted, provided for the maximum number of judges (excluding the CJI) to be 10.

This number was increased to 13 by the Supreme Court (Number of Judges), Amendment Act, 1960, and to 17 by another amendment to the law.

The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act, 1986, augmented the strength of the Supreme Court judges from 17 to 25, excluding the CJI. Subsequently, a fresh amendment in 2009 further augmented the strength of top court judges from 25 to 30.

This was followed by the previous amendment in 2019.