New Delhi, February 21
Taking into account the growing burden of cases even before the Supreme Court whose track record in speedy disposal though was quite impressive, the Cabinet today approved a proposal for amending the law to increase the strength of its judges to 31 from existing 26, including the Chief Justice of India.
The Cabinet approved a proposal placed before it by the law ministry for introducing a Bill in Parliament for amending the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956, for increasing the number of judges to augment the strength of the apex court, government’s principal director-general (media communication) Dipak Sandhu said after the Cabinet meeting.
The current sanctioned strength of 26 judges was also made by Parliament by an amendment in the Act in 1986 raising it from 18, including the CJI.
There is at present one vacancy out of 26 posts of judges in the apex court and it could not be filled as CJI K.G. Balakrishnan is reportedly in favour of bringing in a woman judge as there is no representation to women after the retirement of Justice Ruma Pal in June, 2006.
The Supreme Court in the past two years had witnessed a sharp increase in its pendeny and it is estimated to have crossed the 60,000 mark though the exact figure are expected to be declared by the court administration soon.
n Nod to SBI rights issue: The Cabinet approved the proposal to invest Rs 9,996 crore ($2.5 billion) in the rights share offering by the State Bank of India (SBI) and setting up of a financial inclusion fund and a financial inclusion technology fund, with a total outlay of Rs 4 billion ($100 million) for the next five years.
