Nine new Supreme Court judges to be sworn in today

Nine newly-appointed judges, including three women, of the Supreme Court would assume the office on Tuesday, in a first ever largest appointments in its history.

All the judges would be sworn by Chief Justice of India at 10.30 am on August 31 in a ceremony organised at the auditorium in the Supreme Court's additional building.

This is for the first time in the history of the Supreme Court of India when nine judges will be taking the oath of office in one go. In another first, the venue of the ceremony has been shifted to the auditorium and it will be telecast live.

"This is done keeping in view the need for strict adherence to Covid norms. Traditionally, oath to the new Judges is administered in the Court Room number one which is presided over by the Chief Justice of India," an official press release on Monday said.

Justices A S Oka, Vikram Nath, J K Maheshwari, Hima Kohli, B V Nagarathna, C T Ravikumar, M M Sundresh, Bela Trivedi and senior advocate P S Narsimha would join the bench after taking the oath.

Of these nine judges, Justices Vikram Nath, and B V Nagarathna and Narsimha would don the role of CJI in future.

With this, the strength of judges in the Supreme Court would rise to 33 with just one vacancy. The appointments to the top court came after a hiatus of over 21 months due to lack of consensus in the collegium of five senior most judges over the names as Justice R F Nariman, who retired on August 12, reportedly insisted on including Tripura High Court chief justice Akil Kureshi's name in recommendations.

The oath ceremony will be telecast live on DD News and DD India. Live webcast of the ceremony will also be available on the home page of official web portal of Supreme Court of India. The webcast can also be accessed at https://webcast.gov.in/scindia/, the release added.