The government on Wednesday appointed four new judges to the Supreme Court, taking its strength to 34, the highest-ever.
According to separate Law Ministry notifications, justices Krishna Murari, S.R. Bhat, V. Ramasubramanian and Hrishikesh Roy were appointed as judges of the top court. The swearing in of the new judges will take place on September 23.
An interesting outcome of this decision would be that the top court will now have four classmates adorning the Bench at the same time. They are D.Y. Chandrachud, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Hrishikesh Roy and S. Ravindra Bhat.
According to a report by the Bar and Bench, all these four judges graduated from Campus Law Centre of Delhi University in 1982.
Justice D.Y. Chandrachud has served as additional judge of the Bombay High Court and was made Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court. Justice Bhat was appointed additional Judge of Delhi High Court in 2004 and was made permanent judge in 2006. Justice Roy was appointed additional judge of Gauhati High Court in 2006 and was made permanent judge in 2008. He was transferred to the Kerala High Court, where he served as Acting Chief Justice and was later made Chief Justice.
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul was appointed an additional judge of the Delhi High Court in 2001 and later became Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in June 2013. He was later made the Chief Justice of Madras High Court.
With the elevation of four new judges, the total number of law graduates from the Campus Centre in the SC benches has become ten. They are: Justices Ravindra Bhat and Hrishikesh Roy, CJI Ranjan Gogi, Justices R F Nariman, D Y Chandrachud, S K Kaul, Navin Sinha, Deepak Gupta and Indu Malhotra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna.
With a huge backlog of cases in the top court, the government had recently increased the strength of its judges from 31 to 34, including the Chief Justice of India.
As of today, the apex court has 30 judges. Once the new judges take oath, the strength will go up to 34, the highest ever.
The sanctioned strength of SC judges was increased days after Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to increase the number of judges in the top court.
According to a written reply by the Law Ministry to a Rajya Sabha question on July 11, 59,331 cases are pending in the top court.
