Daily News Analysis ‘Supreme Court Structural Expansion & Case Pendency’ : 29 May

Why in News: 

• The President promulgated an ordinance to increase the sanctioned judge strength of the Supreme Court of India from 34 to 38 to tackle escalating case pendency.

Key Facts: Analysis of Judge Strength and Pendency Dynamics

• Constitutional Authority: Under Article 124(1) of the Constitution of India, the power to alter and prescribe the total sanctioned number of Supreme Court judges is vested exclusively in Parliament via legislative enactments.
• Ordinance Route Paradox: While the executive can increase bench capacity through presidential ordinances during parliamentary recess under Article 123, previous structural expansions (such as in 1956, 1960, 1977, 1986, 2008, and 2019) were traditionally executed via ordinary legislative bills.
• The Special Leave Petition (SLP) Bottleneck: A substantial volume of the apex court’s caseload is consumed by discretionary appeals under Article 136, which grants extraordinary power to hear appeals against any judgment from any court or tribunal, bypassing standard appellate hierarchies.
• The Polyvocality vs. Consistency Dilemma: Expanding judge strength creates more Division Benches (typically consisting of two judges), which accelerates initial case processing but increases the risk of conflicting rulings among coordinate benches, requiring prolonged references to larger Constitution Benches.
• Absence of National Litigation Policy (NLP): Public entities, central ministries, and state governments remain the country’s most prolific litigants; the lack of a standardized litigation framework frequently forces routine disputes and repetitive transfer petitions up to the apex level.
• Procedural Reform Benchmarks: Overcoming case backlogs relies heavily on establishing institutional filters to curb frivolous Public Interest Litigations (PIL) by strictly applying judicial guidelines like those in State of Uttaranchal vs. Balwant Singh Chaufal, alongside implementing rigid time caps for oral arguments.