Upper House passed the Bill to increase Judge’s strength in Supreme Court on Wednesday. Surprisingly, the Bill was passed without any discussion on the matter. Previously, the Bill has already received approval of Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
It seeks to repeal the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act 1956 for reducing the burden on Judiciary’s apex court. The Bill increases the size of the total judge’s strength from existing 31 to 34 (including Chief Justice of India). The Bill’s discussion has been slated for November this year on the assurance given by Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
The decision to increase the strength of Judges was taken due to the fact that the constitutional bench demands the sitting of a minimum of 5 judges. Due to the same reason, the court has not been able to reduce the pendency of cases as it was finding it hard to constitute enough benches on a regular basis to deal with the ever-increasing cases. Therefore, it resulted in an inefficient justice delivery mechanism causing delay of justice.
But Rajya Sabha on Wednesday deferred the Bill seeking the removal of Congress member as the president of Jalianwala Bagh trust. It was not taken up for discussion due to lack of consensus. This mentioned Bill has already been passed in Lok Sabha. It seeks to amend the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Act,1951. With the passage of Bill, the provision for nominating Congress trustee as the permanent President will be diluted away.
Dam Safety Bill, 2019 and the Transgender Person Bill (Protection of Rights), 2019 were the other bills that could not be taken up in the Upper House.
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