0. Primer — How the Supreme Court's Structure Works

The Supreme Court of India was inaugurated on 26 January 1950, the day the Constitution came into force, replacing the Federal Court of India. Its powers and composition sit in Articles 124–147 of Part V. Three heads of jurisdiction matter for exams:

• Original jurisdiction (Art. 131): disputes directly between the Union and one or more States, or between States themselves — no private citizen can invoke this. It has been used sparingly (e.g., inter-State river-water and border disputes).
• Appellate jurisdiction (Arts. 132–136): the bulk of the Court's docket — civil, criminal and constitutional appeals from High Courts, plus the sweeping residual power under Art. 136 (Special Leave Petition, or "SLP") letting the Court grant leave to appeal from any court or tribunal in the country, at its own discretion. Nearly all the cases in this book reach the Supreme Court either as direct writ petitions under Art. 32 or as Art. 136 appeals/SLPs.
• Advisory jurisdiction (Art. 143): the President may refer a question of law or fact of public importance to the Court for its opinion; the Court's advisory opinion (unlike a judgment) is not strictly binding, though in practice it is treated as authoritative. The Third Judges case (1998) and the Berubari reference (1960) both arose this way.

Strength of the Court: the Constitution originally fixed the Court at a Chief Justice + 7 puisne judges (8 total) in 1950. Parliament has periodically raised this by ordinary legislation (the Supreme Court, being a creature partly of statute on this point) — to 10 in 1956, 13 in 1960, 17 in 1977, 25 in 1986, 30 in 2008, 33 in 2019, and — per the book's 2026 update note — 38 (including the CJI) most recently. Sanctioned strength and working strength (judges actually in post at a given time) are routinely different — a frequent prelims trap.

The Collegium system: since the Second Judges case (1993), judicial appointments to the Supreme Court and High Courts are made on the binding recommendation of a "collegium" — the CJI plus the four senior-most sitting SC judges (for SC appointments) — rather than on the executive's primacy as under the original 1950s–80s practice. There is no standalone statute establishing the collegium; it is entirely a judicially evolved mechanism, refined across the four "Judges cases" detailed in Section F below.

With that frame in place, the cases that follow essentially trace how each of these features — jurisdiction, appointments, and the power to check even a constitutional amendment — was fought over and settled.