Cabinet to introduce bill to increase number of Supreme Court judges

New Delhi: The Cabinet on Wednesday decided to introduce a bill in Parliament to increase the number of judges in the Supreme Court.

The bill would seek to increase the number of judges in the apex court from 31 to 34 - excluding the Chief Justice of India. This closely followed a letter written by CJI Ranjan Gogoi to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which he had asked for the number of judges in the top court to be increased.

In 2009, the number of judges in the Supreme Court had been increased from 26 to 31 but this is still seen as too few considering the number of cases pending. In his letter to the PM, CJI Gogoi had highlighted that there are over 58,000 cases pending in the Supreme Court alone. He had said that increasing the number of judges would bring this number down.

Gogoi had also asked for a constitutional amendment which would increase the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 62 to 65 years.

Earlier in July, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had also said that the time is now to fill up judicial vacancies, not just in the Supreme Court but in lowe courts as well. He had said this at the inauguration event of Supreme Court's Additional Building Complex in New Delhi.