- The Rajya Sabha has passed the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Bill,2019.The Lok Sabha has already passed the bill.
- The bill seeks to increase the number of Supreme Court judges in the country’s apex court from the present 30 to 33.
- This bill was introduced after Chief Justice of India had written to Prime Minister to increase the number of judges in the top court.
- CJI had written that due to paucity of judges,the required number of Constitution Benches to decide important cases involving questions of law were not being formed.
- The strength of the Supreme Court is fixed by law made by the Parliament as per Article 124(1) of the Constitution of India.Therefore, the strength can be increased by way of parliamentary legislation.
- The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act,1956 originally provided for a maximum of 11 judges.The act was last amended in 2009 to increase the judges strength from 25 to 30 excluding the CJI.
