National Assembly’s (NA) Standing committee for Law and Justice led by Chairman Chaudhry Mahmood Bashir Virk on Monday rejected a Bill to increase the number of Supreme Court (SC) judges from 17 to 26. During the debate, Virk noted that the SC roster was already too high and instead of increasing it further, it should be reduced. While criticising the working of SC judges, the NA standing committee chairman said that judges do not do their actual work of disposing of cases and instead take action on issues of socio-political nature to get fame, which keeps them in the headlines. Our judicial system is notorious for producing delayed judgments as cases continue to linger on for years and years. There is a huge backlog of pending cases at superior and lower courts that have not been decided yet. Reportedly, there were 22,764 cases pending before the Supreme Court at the end of 2014. In the five high courts, the number was 282,049. These included 164,683 in the Lahore High Court, 70,046 in Sindh High Court, 27,541 in Peshawar High Court, 5,279 in Balochistan High Court and 14,500 in Islamabad High Court. This huge pendency of cases in the country is cause for concern. In this scenario, an increase in the number of judges alone will not cater to the demands of justice. Rather a lot more needs to be done to effectively deal with the existing situation. Can addition of more judges solve this matter? There are opposing views regarding an increase in the number of judges. Different quarters concerned including lawyers’ bodies, government representatives, and even judiciary have opposed the expansion of SC. It is argued that instead of increasing the number of SC judges, reforms in the existing judicial system should be introduced. There is a need to strengthen judicial infrastructure in order to deal with the mounting number of cases. When compared with the number of judges in other countries, it was found that big democratic states like India and US have only 31 and nine judges respectively. The judiciary needs to take stock of its working. There is needless interference and no self-restraint by the judges. Too much time is wasted on cases that are plain frivolous. Frivolous cases that consume too much court time should be dealt with a heavy hand and exemplary costs should be imposed on such litigation. The same must be done for cases where corporate entities file frivolous cases against their business rivals. The judiciary will have to devise a way to deal with this. Unless this is done, even a ten-fold increase in the strength of judges will not serve any purpose. Frivolous litigation needs to be tightly regulated. While speedy disposal of cases should be a priority, cases must not be dismissed only because it amounts to addition in the number of disposed cases. Cases must be decided on merit, not because speedy disposal needs to be done. Retired judges could be asked to work as ad hoc or additional judges in the Supreme Court or the high courts as this can help decrease the burden on the judiciary. *