Parliament has cleared a bill raising the sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court from 34 judges to 38, including the Chief Justice of India, with the Rajya Sabha passing the measure days after the Lok Sabha approved it.
The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Bill, 2026 replaces an ordinance issued in May and adds four seats to the bench. It amends the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956 rather than the Constitution — Article 124 leaves the number of judges to Parliament to fix by ordinary law, which is why no constitutional amendment was required.
The request that started it
The expansion follows a letter from Chief Justice of India Surya Kant to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 11 May, flagging the volume of litigation reaching the court and the difficulty of holding the disposal rate steady while also constituting Constitution Benches. That tension is structural: five- and seven-judge benches pull judges out of the regular two- and three-judge rosters, and every Constitution Bench sitting slows the ordinary docket behind it.
Four additional judges give the court roughly two more benches to work with. In practice, that is the argument for the change and the limit of it.
A familiar pattern
The court began in 1950 with eight judges. Parliament has raised the number in steps since — to 11, then 14, 18, 26, 31 and, in 2019, to 34. Each increase has been justified in similar terms: rising filings, a growing backlog, and the need to hear constitutional questions without freezing routine appeals.
Pendency before the Supreme Court now runs to more than 80,000 matters. The court disposes of a comparable volume each year, which means the backlog is being held roughly level rather than reduced. Filings have climbed alongside every capacity expansion.
The practical question now shifts to appointments. Sanctioned strength and working strength are different numbers, and the collegium process determines how quickly the four seats are actually occupied. Vacancies at the apex court have in the past remained unfilled for months at a stretch, and the same recommendation-and-clearance pipeline that governs those appointments now applies to the additional posts.
Infrastructure follows too — courtrooms, registry capacity and support staff all scale with bench strength. None of that is an argument against the expansion, but it does set expectations for how quickly its effects will show up in listing dates.
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