Bench expansion and pendency: A timeline

On Saturday, the President promulgated an Ordinance increasing the sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court from 34 to 38 judges. The Ordinance comes 11 days after the Union Cabinet approved the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Bill, 2026. The Ordinance is expected to be tabled in the next session of Parliament. 

The Union Cabinet proposal indicated that four new judges “will allow Supreme Court to function more efficiently and effectively ensuring speedy justice.” The top court’s strength has risen periodically throughout its 75 years of existence. The Court initially started with eight judges in 1950, before expanding to 34 judges in 2019. 

As of today, with 38 sitting judges, the Court has six vacancies and a pendency of 93,731 cases.

Figure 1 indicates the total pendency in years in which the strength of the Supreme Court was increased. Pendency figures were extracted from the Indian Judiciary Annual Report, which reflects the total number of pending cases at the end of the year.

Strength of the bench was first increased in 1956 from 8 to 11 judges. That year, pendency stood at 1722 cases. The year 1960 saw the strength increase to 14 judges, with 2656 pending cases before the Court. 

There was no increase in strength for 18 years until 1978, when the Court expanded to 18 judges amid a backlog of 23,518 cases. Eight judges were added in 1986—pendency climbed to 85,899 cases.

There was no increase in sitting strengths until 2009 where five judges were added to the top court. Pendency stood at 59,859 cases at the time. Notably, the court had altered its counting methodology in 1993 to calculate pendency file-wise without expanding hyphenated file numbers. This explains why the figures appear to drop between 1986 to 2009. 

In 2019, the strength was increased to 34. At the time, the amendment claimed that it would be impossible for the CJI to constitute Constitution Benches because doing so would result in fewer division benches—leading to “a delay in hearing of other civil and criminal matters”. 

A year later, pendency substantially increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2026, the Cabinet is proposing to increase the strength, though offering a less focused explanation on the structural advantages of increasing the strength of the top court. As of now, there are six vacancies in the Supreme Court, with two more retirements expected in June of Justices Pankaj Mithal and J.K. Maheshwari. There has been no recommendation by the CJI Surya Kant led Collegium during his 175 day long tenure so far. It is expected that the Court has been awaiting the formal expansion before recommending new appointments to the top court.

While pendency figures give us a snapshot of the total docket at the time, a better metric to determine the impact of bench strength on the docket would depend on the total institutions and disposals recorded that year.

Is there an impact? 

Figure 2 indicates the institution and disposal trends in each year the sitting strength of the Court was increased. As the figure indicates, institutions surpassed disposals each year, except in 1986, when the Court disposed of more cases than filed. Institutions are largely driven by the number of people filing cases, and how the Court accepts them. The above figure simply illustrates the trends that existed during those specific expansion years.

In 2019, former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi stated that a higher strength would reduce pendency. He stated: “Inadequate strength of Judges is one of the prime reasons for the backlog of cases in the Supreme Court.” Conversely, his successor, CJI D.Y. Chandrachud countered this view by stating that increasing the number of judges will not affect the backlog of cases. 

A study carried out by the Supreme Court Observer in February 2023 suggested that there is no discernible trend proving working strength affects case disposals. Pendency largely depends on how the Court disposes off cases. If disposals outpace filings, pendency drops; if filings outpace disposals, it grows. 

As of now, the Court will require 1.4 years to clear its docket if no new cases are filed. Increasing the strength offers distinct advantages such as giving the Court an opportunity to improve gender diversity and regional representation, however, an increased strength must be coupled with administrative measures that fundamentally alter both institution and disposal trends.