122 days into CJI Surya Kant’s tenure, no Supreme Court judge has been appointed despite one vacancy. The delay raises questions as past Collegiums usually made recommendations much earlier.
As of 24 March 2026, there is still one vacancy in the Supreme Court of India. Chief Justice Surya Kant, who is currently heading the five-judge Collegium, took oath as the 53rd Chief Justice of India on 24 November 2025 and has completed 122 days in office so far. During this period, the Collegium has not made any recommendation for appointment of judges to the Supreme Court, which has raised questions about whether such delay is normal or unusual.
However, this delay is only in relation to Supreme Court appointments. The three-member Collegium led by CJI Surya Kant for High Court appointments has remained active. This Collegium has recommended several names for appointment to High Courts and has also issued a standard operating procedure for the appointment of Chief Justices to various High Courts. This shows that the Collegium is functioning, but no recommendation has been made yet for filling the Supreme Court vacancy.
This situation raises an important question: Is it unusual for the Collegium to remain inactive for so long after a new Chief Justice takes charge? To understand this, we need to look at past data and see how long previous Collegiums took to recommend judges to the Supreme Court after a new CJI assumed office.
Collegium resolutions were made public only from the middle of the tenure of CJI Dipak Misra. Therefore, comparisons are made only with the Collegiums led by the CJIs who came after him — Ranjan Gogoi, S.A. Bobde, N.V. Ramana, U.U. Lalit, D.Y. Chandrachud, Sanjiv Khanna and B.R. Gavai.
Among all of them, the Collegium led by CJI N.V. Ramana took the longest time — 115 days — to recommend judges after taking office. That Collegium recommended nine judges to the Supreme Court at that time. On the other hand, the Collegium led by CJI B.R. Gavai took the shortest time — only 12 days — to make recommendations. The Collegium led by CJI Sanjiv Khanna made recommendations within 17 days.
The tenure of CJI S.A. Bobde was different from the others. His tenure lasted around one and a half years, but during that entire period, no recommendations were made for Supreme Court appointments due to a reported deadlock within the Collegium over the elevation of Justice Akil Kureshi. That deadlock was never resolved, and no appointments were made during his tenure.
The Collegiums led by CJI Gogoi, CJI Lalit and CJI Chandrachud took around one month each to recommend judges after they took office, which is considered a normal timeframe when compared to the present situation.
One important issue is the single vacancy that currently exists in the Supreme Court. It is possible that the Collegium is waiting for another vacancy to arise so that more than one judge can be recommended at the same time. This has happened earlier as well.
For example, the recommendations for Justices N. Kotiswar Singh and R. Mahadevan were made in July 2024 after Justices Aniruddha Bose and A.S. Bopanna retired in April and May 2024. The Collegium did not recommend anyone immediately after Justice Bose’s retirement, and instead recommended two judges together in July so that the sanctioned strength of 34 judges could be restored at once.
Another possible reason for the delay could be that the Collegium is waiting for retirements in the High Courts. This would allow the Collegium to recommend certain preferred candidates without breaking the seniority rule or superseding senior judges, which is an important convention followed in judicial appointments.
The main concern, however, is the lack of transparency and explanation. There is very little public information available about how the Collegium takes decisions, why vacancies are kept unfilled, and why there is delay in restoring the Supreme Court to its full strength.
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There is also no formal system through which such delays can be questioned. For example, during the tenure of CJI Sanjiv Khanna, the Collegium filled only one of the two vacancies that existed when he took office, and the other vacancy remained unfilled throughout his tenure.
The time taken by different Collegiums in the past shows that the functioning of the Collegium depends entirely on the prerogative of the Chief Justice of India and the Collegium members. There is no fixed procedure, no clear rules, and no specific time limit within which Supreme Court vacancies must be filled. This gives the Collegium complete control over the timing of appointments.
It is important to remember that the strength of the Supreme Court was increased in 2019 to deal with the growing number of pending cases. Even today, pendency of cases continues to rise.
Therefore, filling vacancies quickly and maintaining the full strength of the Court is an important step in reducing case backlog and improving the justice delivery system in India. A more proactive approach in filling Supreme Court vacancies could help in addressing the problem of rising pendency and ensuring faster justice.
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