Bill for increasing judges strength in SC introduced in LS

New Delhi, Apr 29 (UNI) A bill to enhance the number of Supreme Court judges from 25 to 30, excluding the Chief Justice of India (CJI), was introduced in the Lok Sabha today to ensure speedy disposal of cases.

Introducing the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Bill, 2008, Law and Justice Minister H R Bharadwaj said that the pendency of cases in the apex court had been constantly on the rise largely due to higher rate of institution of cases. As on March 31 last year, 41,581 cases were pending in the Supreme Court.

He informed that the Chief Justice of India had intimated that the judges of the Supreme Court were over-burdened and had been working under acute work pressure.

Besides it was not possible for the CJI to constitute a five-judge bench on a regular basis to hear cases involving interpretation of constitutional law as doing that would result in constitution of less number of Division Benches which in turn would result in delay in the hearing of other civil and criminal matters.

It was therefore necessary to augment the strength of the judges so that the court could function more efficiently and effectively towards attaining the 'ultimate goal' of rendering speedy justice to the litigant public, he said.

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