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 case pendency in the apex court.
The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Bill, 2026 seeks parliament's approval to raise the headcount of judges in the apex court to 38, including the chief justice of India (CJI), from 34 currently.
In May, the Union Cabinet approved a proposal to increase the number of Supreme Court judges, after which the government cleared the appointment of five new judges on 1 June to help reduce pendency in the apex court, which primarily deals with complex questions of law.
Currently, the working strength of the top court's bench is 32, including the CJI. The last time the sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court bench, excluding the chief justice, was increased was in 2019, from 30 to 33.
Appointments to the Supreme Court bench are crucial due to the high volume of cases to be decided by the top court. According to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), a government-run portal, as many as 92,249 cases are pending in the Supreme Court, of which 35,808 (38%) are less than a year old. The oldest case still pending before the court is from 1986, according to the NJDG. India’s top court disposed of 56,342 cases in 2025 against 60,948 new cases filed, the data showed.
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 the two senior-most puisne judges, Justices Vikram Nath and J.K. Maheshwari.
A puisne judge in a high court or Supreme Court refers to a judge who is ranked lower in seniority than the chief justice of that particular court.
NJDG DATA
Meanwhile, India’s lower courts are still burdened with high pendency. NJDG data also showed that the country’s district courts have 31.15 million criminal pending cases and 6.13 million pending civil suits.
So far in 2026, district courts have disposed of 12.89 million cases, the data showed, against 14.68 million new cases instituted in the same period.
Most notably, according to NJDG data, the biggest reason behind this burgeoning pendency is the unavailability of counsel in nearly 6 million cases.
