Cabinet to pass Bill to increase strength of Supreme Court by 10%

The Union Cabinet has decided to introduce a Bill with a view to increasing the strength of the Supreme Court by 10%, the Press Information Bureau of India reports..Addressing the media, Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar said,.“When there are so many matters pending in the Supreme Court, there is a need for more judges. Today, the Cabinet has taken a decision to increase the strength from 31 to 34 judges..Presently, the Bench is full. Now, three more judges will be sanctioned..There has also been talk about the number of vacancies in the high courts. But, you will have seen that in 2016, the NDA government increased the total sanctioned strength of 906 judges by 173to bring it to 1079. This was done to ensure that the people get speedy justice and to address the issue of delays.”.Presently, the Supreme Court has a sanctioned strength of 31 judges. The move will take the number of posts at the Apex Court to 34..Since the appointments of Justices BR Gavai, Surya Kant, Aniruddha Bose and AS Bopanna in May this year, the Supreme Court has been functioning at full capacity..The Supreme Court will continue sitting at its full strength until the retirement of Justice AM Sapre on August 27. Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi is due to retire on November 17 this year.