Three new judges take oath, and the Supreme Court sits at 37

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant administered the oath of office to three new Supreme Court judges on Tuesday in the auditorium of the new court block. Justices Sunita Agarwal, Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Aparesh Kumar Singh took the oath. Working strength is now 37, one seat short of the sanctioned 38. With Agarwal's appointment, the number of women judges on the court rises to three.

The other two women already on the bench are Justice B. V. Nagarathna, a judge of the court since 31 August 2021, and Justice Venkita Subramani Mohana, appointed on 2 June 2026. Agarwal was chief justice of the Gujarat High Court. Upadhyaya was chief justice of the Delhi High Court. Singh was chief justice of the Telangana High Court. Agarwal and Upadhyaya came up through the Allahabad High Court. Singh came through the Jharkhand High Court.

The careers that walked into the auditorium

Agarwal was born on 30 April 1966. She enrolled as an advocate in 1990, became an additional judge of the Allahabad High Court in 2011, a permanent judge in 2013, and chief justice in Gujarat in July 2023. That path, from enrolment to the Supreme Court, took 36 years. Upadhyaya's last post was the Delhi High Court, the court that hears a large share of the Union's administrative litigation before it reaches the top court. Singh's last post was Telangana. The collegium has, in this round, drawn three chief justices rather than three puisne judges.

Other judges of the Supreme Court, judicial officers and officials from high courts were in the auditorium. The ceremony is short. The effect is on listings. Three new judges mean three more benches that can be constituted once the roster is redrawn. A court at 37 is not a court at full sanctioned strength, but it is no longer carrying three empty seats on top of the one that remains.

What the single empty seat still means

The sanctioned strength is 38. After Tuesday it is 37. One recommendation is still outstanding, or one judge has not yet been sworn. The court has operated below strength for long stretches in recent years, and arrears move with the number of benches more than with any single appointment. Tuesday's three oaths are the largest one-day addition the court has had in this cycle. They do not clear the docket. They change how many division benches the chief justice can run next week.

The gender count is a separate fact and a small one. Three women on a bench of 37 is still a small share. It is also the highest number the court has had at once in this composition, because Nagarathna has sat since 2021 and Mohana only since June. Agarwal is the first of the three whose immediate previous office was a high court chief justiceship in Gujarat. Future listings that require a woman judge on a bench, including some matters under statutes that prefer a woman member, become easier to constitute.

The week these oaths sit inside

The oaths landed on a day when the court's political surroundings were loud. Opposition MPs spent the morning trying to march from Parliament to the Election Commission over the Special Intensive Revision of rolls, and were stopped. That protest is not the court's case, unless a petition on the revision is already before a bench. The judges sworn on Tuesday will inherit whatever part of that litigation is assigned to them. They do not arrive as specialists in election law. They arrive as former chief justices of three large high courts, which is the pool the collegium used.

The next administrative act is the chief justice's. A new roster will place Agarwal, Upadhyaya and Singh on benches. Until that order is published, Tuesday's event is a headcount: 37 judges, three of them women, one seat still empty, three chief justices of high courts now sitting in the new block.