Question

What is the quorum of the supreme court , when it sits as a constitutionl bench and in other cases ?

Answer 1

Quorum is the minimum no. of judges required to attend a case. This example will help to understand quorum.

In one of the High Courts in NE states last year(2017) the no. of judges were just 3, when the sanctioned strength is 8 or 9. The HC had just 3 judges. Generally HC has thousands of cases.

Certain cases require a bench with more than 1 judge, which is called Division bench for hearing appeals or constitutional issues. Sometimes larger division benches are setup. With a case requiring 5 judges and only with 3 judges the quorum can't me met. This leads to deadlock not being able to move forward leading to pendency of cases.

This happened last year in that NE state and retired HC judges were appointed temporarily as ad-hoc judges by Chief Justice of India as mentioned in Article 127.

In SC this shall not happen and will not be allowed to happen by Chief Justice of India to maintain professionalism and to preserve the respect and dignity of the Supreme court.

Sanctioned strength of SC is 32. But even today only 24 are there. Reason as former CJI Thakur lamented in 2016, the quality of judges in district courts and their corrupt activities are reducing the pool of judges from which HC and SC judge appointments can be made.

So quorum(minimum judges to sit in a bench for hearing a case) not being able to be met is a rarest of rare case but it happened last year in the NE state as explained.

1.5k Views · View Upvoters · Answer requested by Shakeel Sohil Sanasar

Upvote· 56

Share

Comment...

Promoted by Kintegra

Looking for high quality leads to grow your B2B business?

Use Kintegra Labs to find quality business leads and increase revenue. No credit card required!

Sign Up



Yawar Aziz, A character in a play called life (1996-present)

Answered Apr 4, 2017

Quorum meaning-

The minimum number of member required for a group to officially conduct business and to cast votes,often but not necessarily a majority or supermajority

Article 127 in The Constitution Of India 1949

127. Appointment of ad hoc Judges

1) If at any time there should not be a quorum of the Judges of the Supreme Court available to hold or continue any session of the Court, the Chief Justice of India may, with the previous consent of the President and after consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned, request in writing the attendance at the sittings of the Court, as an ad hoc Judge, for such period as may be necessary, of a Judge of a High Court duly qualified for appointment as a Judge of the Supreme Court to be designated by the Chief Justice of India

2) It shall be the duty of the Judge who has been so designated, in priority to other duties of his office, to attend the sittings of the Supreme Court at the time and for the period for which his attendance is required, and while so attending he shall have all the jurisdiction, powers and privileges, and shall discharge the duties, of a Judge of the Supreme Court

Article 127 of the Constitution provides that if at any time there should not a quorum of Judges of the Supreme Court available to hold or continue any session of the Court the Chief Justice of India may, with the previous consent of the President and after consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned request, in writing, a Judge of a High Court duly qualified for appointment as a Judge of thebSupreme Court to attend, for such period as may be necessary, the sittings of the Supreme Court . Whenever the necessity for such an appointment arises, the Chief Justice of India will consult the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned whether a Judge is available to attend the sittings of the Supreme Court