Supreme Court and Judiciary: composition, collegium, and jurisdiction

The Supreme Court sits at the apex of a single, integrated judicial system that serves both the Union and the states, unlike the dual court systems of federations such as the United States. Part V, Chapter IV of the Constitution (Articles 124 to 147) covers how it is composed, how judges are appointed and removed, and how wide its jurisdiction runs. This chapter is consistently high yield: it combines hard numbers (retirement age, sanctioned strength), precise article citations, and a sequence of landmark cases UPSC likes to test both as chronology and as statement-based traps.

This chapter's material overlaps with NCERT Class 11, Indian Constitution at Work, Chapter 6 (Judiciary). This note goes further than that chapter's coverage.

Composition and appointment of judges

Article 124(1) establishes the Supreme Court as consisting of a Chief Justice of India (CJI) and other judges. The original 1950 text capped the "other judges" at seven; Parliament has raised that ceiling by ordinary law several times since, most recently through the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act, 2019 (sanctioned strength 34, the CJI plus 33) and then the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act, 2026, which raised it further to 38 (the CJI plus 37), citing the Court's case backlog. Because this figure changes by ordinary legislation, not constitutional amendment, treat it as the latest known number, not a permanently fixed one.

Every judge is appointed by the President, by warrant under hand and seal, after the consultation process described below. Once appointed, a judge holds office until the retirement age (see Tenure), unless they resign earlier by writing to the President or are removed under Article 124(4).

Qualifications for appointment

Under Article 124(3), a person is qualified for appointment as a Supreme Court judge only if they are a citizen of India, and additionally satisfy at least one of three conditions:

1. Has been a judge of a High Court (or of two or more such courts in succession) for at least five years, or
2. Has been an advocate of a High Court (or of two or more such courts in succession) for at least ten years, or
3. Is, in the opinion of the President, a distinguished jurist.

The third route is rarely used in practice but remains constitutionally live, and is a favourite statement-based trap ("only sitting or former High Court judges are eligible", which is false).

The collegium system: what it actually is

The word "collegium" appears nowhere in the text of the Constitution. It is a judiciary-evolved mechanism, built entirely through Supreme Court interpretation of the word "consultation" in Article 124(2), not a body created by any single article or statute. Its interpretation swung across three major cases, usually called the "Judges Cases":

First Judges Case, S.P. Gupta v Union of India (1981). The Court read "consultation" narrowly: the President (in effect, the executive) was not bound by the CJI's advice, and could differ from it for good reasons. This gave the executive the upper hand in appointments and transfers.

Second Judges Case, Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v Union of India (1993). A nine-judge bench reversed course: "consultation" was read to effectively mean concurrence. The CJI's opinion, formed after consulting the two senior-most judges of the Court, would have primacy. This is the real birth of the collegium system, shifting the balance of power from the executive to the judiciary.

Third Judges Case, In re Presidential Reference under Article 143 (1998). President K.R. Narayanan sought the Court's advisory opinion on how "consultation" should work in practice. The opinion expanded the collegium from the CJI plus two senior judges to the CJI plus four senior-most judges for Supreme Court appointments, reflecting a plurality of judicial opinion rather than the CJI's view alone.

Today the collegium is the CJI and the four senior-most judges, and the President formally appoints on its recommendation, with only a limited power to send a name back once for reconsideration.

The NJAC episode: a constitutional amendment that failed

Dissatisfaction with a judiciary that appointed its own members led Parliament to attempt a structural fix. The Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, 2014, with the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014, inserted new Articles (124A to 124C) to create the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), a six-member body: the CJI, the two senior-most Supreme Court judges, the Union Law Minister, and two eminent persons. It was meant to replace the collegium entirely for appointing and transferring judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts.

In Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v Union of India (2015), a five-judge Constitution Bench struck down both the 99th Amendment Act and the NJAC Act by a 4:1 majority (Justice J. Chelameswar dissenting). The majority held that the scheme diluted judicial primacy in appointments, because any two of the six NJAC members could veto a name, giving the executive an effective check the Court held was incompatible with judicial independence, a feature it treated as part of the Constitution's basic structure and therefore beyond the reach of even a constitutional amendment. Striking down the 99th Amendment restored the pre-amendment text of Article 124(2), and with it the collegium exactly as the Second and Third Judges Cases had shaped it. This case is often called the Fourth Judges Case, and the collegium versus NJAC contrast (why one survived judicial review and the other did not) is one of the most reliable statement-based traps in this chapter.

Tenure and removal of judges

A Supreme Court judge holds office until the age of 65 years (fixed under Article 124(2); High Court judges retire at 62, a frequently confused pair of numbers). A judge may resign by writing to the President, or be removed under the special procedure in Article 124(4).

Removal requires a motion, passed in each House of Parliament separately by a special majority (a majority of total membership, and two-thirds of members present and voting) within the same session, on the only permissible grounds of "proved misbehaviour or incapacity." Under the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, a motion needs signatures from at least 100 Lok Sabha or 50 Rajya Sabha members to be admitted, after which a three-member committee (a Supreme Court judge, a High Court Chief Justice, and a distinguished jurist) investigates before either House votes.

This has been invoked a few times but has never actually removed a sitting judge. The closest it has come is Justice V. Ramaswami: a removal motion, moved in the Lok Sabha in 1993 after an inquiry committee found him guilty on most charges, came to a floor vote on 11 May 1993. It secured 196 votes in favour but fell short because 205 Congress MPs abstained, so the motion failed. No Supreme Court judge has been removed under Article 124(4) to date.

Jurisdiction: three distinct categories

The Supreme Court's jurisdiction is unusually wide, and UPSC often tests whether a candidate can correctly slot a given power into the right one of three categories.

Original jurisdiction (Article 131). The Supreme Court alone can decide disputes between the Government of India and one or more states, between the Centre and states on one side and other states on the other, or between two or more states, where the dispute turns on a legal right. This is exclusive jurisdiction, no other court in India can hear such a dispute (an interstate river-water dispute framed as a legal-right question is a common example).

Appellate jurisdiction (Articles 132 to 134A). The Court hears appeals from High Court judgments under three heads: constitutional (Article 132, a substantial question on interpreting the Constitution), civil (Article 133, a substantial question of law of general importance), and criminal (Article 134, covering situations such as a High Court reversing an acquittal into a death sentence). Article 134A requires the High Court, right after its own judgment, to consider whether to grant such a certificate.

Advisory jurisdiction (Article 143). The President may refer a question of law or fact of public importance to the Court for its opinion, which the Court gives after such hearing as it thinks fit. This differs from the other two heads in two ways: it is triggered only by the President, not by any private party, and the opinion, unlike a judgment, is not strictly binding. The Court can also decline to answer a reference, as it did with parts of the reference following the 1993 Ayodhya title dispute. The Third Judges Case above is itself an Article 143 reference, not a regular appeal or writ petition. Keeping original (exclusive), appellate (from High Courts), and advisory (discretionary, non-binding) straight is exactly the distinction a statement-based question tries to blur.

Article 136: the Special Leave Petition

Article 136 sits outside the three-category scheme above and gives the Supreme Court an extraordinary, discretionary power: it may grant special leave to appeal from any judgment, decree, determination, sentence or order passed by any court or tribunal in India, regardless of whether an ordinary right of appeal exists under Articles 132 to 134A. The only express carve-out, under Article 136(2), is a judgment, determination, sentence or order of a court or tribunal constituted under a law relating to the Armed Forces (courts-martial and similar military tribunals).

Because Article 136 is not tied to constitutional questions, a money or sentence threshold, or any particular subject matter, it makes the Court's practical appellate reach far wider than Articles 132 to 134A alone suggest: an SLP can, in principle, be filed against an order from almost any tribunal in the country. Because the power is discretionary ("may", not "shall"), the Court can refuse an SLP even where it has the power to hear one, which is why most SLPs are dismissed at the admission stage itself.

Article 141 and Article 142: two different kinds of power

These two articles are frequently confused with each other, and are worth holding apart precisely.

Article 141 says the law declared by the Supreme Court is binding on all courts within the territory of India. This gives Supreme Court judgments their precedent value across the judicial hierarchy: every High Court and subordinate court must follow the ratio (the binding legal reasoning) of a Supreme Court decision. It does not bind the Supreme Court itself to its own past decisions as rigidly, though the Court generally follows its own precedent for consistency.

Article 142 gives the Supreme Court the power to pass any decree or order necessary for doing complete justice in any matter pending before it, enforceable throughout India. This is a remedial, case-specific power, not a source of binding precedent, it lets the Court cut through procedural or statutory constraints to reach a just outcome in the case before it. It was used, for example, to directly grant a decree of divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage in Shilpa Sailesh v Varun Sreenivasan (2023), a remedy ordinary divorce law does not itself provide. Where Article 142's limits lie against a legislature's own statutory scheme remains an actively debated live topic, which is why it keeps resurfacing in both Prelims and Mains.

Judicial review: constitutional basis and evolution

Judicial review, the power of courts to examine the constitutionality of a legislative or executive act and strike it down if it violates the Constitution, rests on several articles read together: Article 13 (any law inconsistent with Fundamental Rights is void), Article 32 (the right to move the Supreme Court to enforce Fundamental Rights), Article 226 (the equivalent, wider power for High Courts), and Article 245 (Parliament and state legislatures make laws subject to the Constitution). No single article is the sole "source" of judicial review; it emerges from this combination.

How far that review power reaches, especially over Parliament's own power to amend the Constitution, has evolved through three landmark cases:

A.K. Gopalan v State of Madras (1950). An early, narrow reading: Article 21 requires only "procedure established by law," not the American "due process of law" standard, so a law that follows a prescribed procedure could restrict personal liberty even if unfair. This narrow view held for nearly three decades until Maneka Gandhi v Union of India (1978) read fairness back into Article 21.

Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala (1973). Decided by a 13-judge bench (the largest ever assembled by the Court) by a wafer-thin 7:6 majority, this held that Parliament's power to amend the Constitution under Article 368 reaches any part of it, including Fundamental Rights, but does not extend to altering or destroying the Constitution's basic structure. No exhaustive list of "basic structure" features was given (later cases added judicial review, federalism, secularism, and free and fair elections), but the principle stuck: some features are beyond the reach of even a constitutional amendment. This is the single most tested case in the polity syllabus, and the same doctrine the NJAC judgment relied on.

Minerva Mills v Union of India (1980). This struck down 42nd Amendment clauses that gave Directive Principles (Part IV) unconditional primacy over Fundamental Rights (Part III), and tried to place amendments beyond judicial review altogether. The Court held a harmonious balance between Rights and Directives is itself part of the basic structure, and that judicial review is itself a basic feature Parliament cannot remove.

Public Interest Litigation (PIL)

Traditionally, only a person whose own legal right had been directly violated could approach a court, the rule of locus standi. Beginning in the early 1980s, the Supreme Court, associated above all with Justice P.N. Bhagwati and Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, relaxed this rule: any public-spirited person or organisation could approach the Court on behalf of a person or class who, for reasons of poverty, disability, or disadvantage, could not approach it themselves. S.P. Gupta v Union of India (1981), the same First Judges Case above, is also a foundational PIL judgment, with Justice Bhagwati writing that "any member of the public having sufficient interest" could seek redress for a wrong done to a determinate class.

PIL has since been used across prison conditions and undertrial detention (an early, influential subject), environmental protection, bonded labour, custodial deaths, and governance and accountability more broadly. It is generally filed as a writ petition under Article 32 or Article 226, which is why the relaxed locus standi rule connects directly back to those articles.

Contempt of court and the "court of record" power

Article 129 declares the Supreme Court a "court of record", meaning its proceedings and decisions are recorded for perpetual memory and carry evidentiary value, and gives it the power to punish for contempt of itself. Parliament gave this statutory shape through the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, whose Section 2 defines two kinds of contempt:

• Civil contempt: wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ, or other process of a court, or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court.
• Criminal contempt: publishing any matter, or doing any act, that scandalises or lowers a court's authority, or prejudices or interferes with a judicial proceeding, or obstructs the administration of justice.

The distinction matters for the exam: civil contempt is about not obeying a specific order, criminal contempt is about undermining the court's authority or a proceeding's fairness more broadly, and both fall under the same Act.

Quick revision points

• Sanctioned strength is set by ordinary law, not fixed constitutional text: 34 (CJI plus 33) under the 2019 Act, raised to 38 (CJI plus 37) under the 2026 Act. Treat this as the latest known figure, not a constant.
• Qualifications (Article 124(3)): citizen of India, plus 5 years as a High Court judge, OR 10 years as a High Court advocate, OR a distinguished jurist.
• Judges Cases: First (1981, executive primacy), Second (1993, judicial primacy, birth of the collegium), Third (1998, collegium expanded to CJI plus four senior judges).
• NJAC (99th Amendment Act plus NJAC Act, 2014) was struck down in SCAORA v Union of India (2015) for violating judicial independence, a basic structure feature, restoring the collegium.
• Retirement age: 65 (Supreme Court), 62 (High Courts). Removal needs a special majority in each House on "proved misbehaviour or incapacity" (Article 124(4)); no judge has ever actually been removed.
• Three jurisdictions: original (Article 131, Centre-state or interstate, exclusive), appellate (Articles 132 to 134A, from High Courts), advisory (Article 143, President-triggered, non-binding, and the Court may decline).
• Article 136 (SLP): discretionary appeal from any court or tribunal in India, except military tribunals.
• Article 141: Supreme Court's law binds all other courts. Article 142: power to do complete justice in the case before it. Easy to conflate.
• Judicial review rests on Articles 13, 32, 226 and 245 together; Kesavananda Bharati (1973) is the basic structure case, Minerva Mills (1980) made judicial review itself part of that basic structure.
• Contempt of Courts Act, 1971: civil contempt (disobeying an order) versus criminal contempt (undermining a court's authority), both punishable under Article 129's court-of-record power.

Practise the statement-based questions UPSC builds around these exact distinctions next, that is what makes them stick.