President Droupadi Murmu assented to the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act, 2026, raising the Court’s sanctioned strength from 34 to 38 judges amid a rising caseload.
New Delhi: President Droupadi Murmu has granted her assent to the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act, 2026, raising the sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court from 34 to 38 judges, including the Chief Justice of India — the first increase in the Court’s statutory strength in seven years, enacted against the backdrop of a mounting caseload and an expanding Constitution Bench workload.
The assent brings the legislation into force after its passage through both Houses of Parliament. The Lok Sabha passed the Bill on August 3, following which it was considered and returned by the Rajya Sabha, and it has now become law with the President’s approval.
What the Act does
The amendment operates on a single, foundational provision. It amends Section 2 of the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956 — the statute that fixes how many judges the Court may have — by substituting the figure of judges (other than the CJI) from 33 to 37. Read together with the Chief Justice, that takes the total sanctioned strength from 34 to 38.
The mechanism is worth understanding, because it explains why an increase of this kind is an Act of Parliament rather than a decision of the Court or the executive. Article 124(1) of the Constitution provides that the Supreme Court shall consist of the Chief Justice of India and “such number of other Judges as Parliament may by law determine.” In other words, the Constitution itself sets no fixed number; it delegates that choice to Parliament, to be exercised through ordinary legislation. The 1956 Act is that legislation, and every change in the Court’s size — including this one — is made by amending it. That is why the strength has moved upward in deliberate steps over the decades rather than fluctuating administratively.
From ordinance to Act
The legislation has a two-stage history that is itself instructive. The increase was first given effect earlier this year through the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Ordinance, 2026, promulgated on May 17. An ordinance, issued under Article 123 when Parliament is not in session, has the force of law but a limited life — it must be laid before Parliament and ceases to operate unless approved within a prescribed period after Parliament reassembles. The present Act, introduced in the Monsoon Session on July 20 and now assented to, is the permanent replacement that converts the temporary ordinance into settled statute, so that the enhanced strength no longer depends on the ordinance’s continuance.
Why the increase was sought
The move originated with the judiciary itself. During the Rajya Sabha debate, Union Law and Justice Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal disclosed that the proposal followed a letter written by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 11, 2026, seeking an enhancement of the sanctioned strength.
The Chief Justice’s stated reasons went beyond the raw volume of filings. He pointed to the strain that Constitution Bench proceedings place on the Court’s ordinary work: when five, seven or nine judges are drawn away to sit on a Constitution Bench, they are diverted from regular hearings, and the Court’s daily disposal rate inevitably suffers. Meghwal cited the recently constituted nine-judge Constitution Bench hearing the Sabarimala reference as an illustration — a single such Bench occupies nearly a third of the Court’s entire sanctioned strength for the duration of the hearing. Increasing the total number of judges is intended to create the headroom for the Court to run Constitution Benches without paralysing its day-to-day docket.
Welcoming the government’s move when it was first announced, the Chief Justice had noted that the volume of pending cases and the rate of fresh filings had both risen significantly.
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Sanctioned strength and working strength are not the same
One point that the increase brings into focus, and that is easily lost in the headline number, is the gap between what the Court is permitted to have and what it actually has. Although the sanctioned strength now stands at 38, the Supreme Court’s present working strength was stated to be 32 judges, including the Chief Justice.
The distinction matters. “Sanctioned strength” is the statutory ceiling — the maximum number of judges the Court may have. “Working strength” is the number of judges actually in office at a given time, which is almost always lower, because vacancies arise on retirement and take time to fill through the collegium-and-government appointment process. Raising the sanctioned strength does not, by itself, put more judges on the Bench; it enlarges the room within which appointments can be made. The immediate practical effect of this Act, therefore, is to widen the gap between sanctioned and working strength to six — creating space for a substantial round of appointments to bring the Court closer to its new capacity, but leaving the actual staffing of those seats to follow.
The wider trajectory
The Supreme Court began, in 1950, with a sanctioned strength of eight judges including the Chief Justice. That figure has been raised in stages over the decades as the Court’s workload has grown — most recently in 2019, when Parliament increased the number of judges other than the CJI from 30 to 33. The 2026 amendment is the latest step in that long upward trajectory, and the government has framed it squarely in terms of the same pressures that drove the earlier increases: a rising tide of litigation and the particular demands of constitutional adjudication on a court that must also clear tens of thousands of ordinary matters each year.
Whether a larger Bench translates into faster justice will depend on how quickly the six vacant seats — and future ones — are actually filled. The Act supplies the capacity; the appointments process will determine whether it is used.
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