The power to increase the number of judges in the Supreme Court of India is vested in? The President of India? The Parliament? [2014]

The power to increase the number of judges in the Supreme Court of India is vested in

the President of India
the Parliament
the Chief Justice of India
the Law Commission

Explanation

Option (b) is correct

Article 124 of the Constitution of India, 1950 establishes the Supreme Court of India and regulates the appointment of judges. The framers of the Constitution had fixed the strength of the Supreme Court to one Chief Justice and seven other judges. However, they left it to the future Parliaments to alter this composition.
The Parliament enacted The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956 (‘Act’) and has amended this Act in six instances to fix the maximum ceiling for the number of judges. In 1956 the number was raised to 11. It was further amended to 14 in 1960, 18 in 1978, 26 in 1986 and 31 in 2009.
In August 2019, Parliament amended the Act further to increase the number of judges to 33 Judges in addition to a Chief Justice.

Horizontal bar chart showing number of judges across selected years from 1950 to 2019. Bars are green with values increasing from 8 in 1950 to 34 in 2019, highlighting steady growth with notable jumps in 1986 and 2019.