Five new judges took oath in the Supreme Court on Friday taking the total strength of judges in the apex court to 28. Yet, there remains a shortfall of three judges in the Supreme Court which has a sanctioned strength of 31.
In a rare sight, five judges were administered oath on a single day by the Chief Justice of India JS Khehar in Court room no. 1. First in the list of seniority was Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who was previously the Chief Justice of Madras High Court. Following him, Justice Mohan M Shantanagoudar, who was till recently the Chief Justice of Kerala High Court, took oath. The next turn was of Justice S Abdul Nazeer of High Court of Karnataka, who has not served as Chief Justice of any High Court. the last two to take oath were Justice Navin Sinha, previously Chief Justice at Rajasthan High Court and Justice Deepak Gupta, the former Chief Justice of Chhattisgarh High Court.
Only once in the past-on December 14, 1988-five judges of the apex court were together administered oath. Till date, the highest oaths to be given on a single day in Supreme Court is six. This event took place on October 6, 1989 when Justices V Ramaswami, PB Sawant, NM Kasliwal, K Ramaswamy, M Fatima Beevi and former CJI MM Punchi took oath.
Soon after the swearing in got over, another rare sight was witnessed in the Chief Justice Court on Friday when the newly-appointed Justice Kaul held Court with CJI Khehar and two other judges, Justices NV Ramana and DY Chandrachud. According to senior lawyers, the Supreme Court either sits in combination of two or three on regular days. “Sitting in a combination of four has its own complications. An order that is passed by the Bench today if challenged will have to be heard by a bench of equal composition or a higher strength," explained a lawyer.
The Supreme Court had a working strength of 23 judges till Friday, which has been the least in the recent past as the number of vacancies in the apex court could not be filled owing to the tussle between the Centre and judiciary over appointing judges as per the amended Memorandum of Procedure. But with CJI signaling some breakthrough in achieving a consensus on the amended MoP, the Government seems to have relented and processed the names of the five SC judges.