New Delhi: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Tuesday administered the oath of office to three newly elevated Supreme Court judges—Justice Sunita Agarwal, Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, and Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh—at a brief swearing-in ceremony held at the apex court. With their induction, the working strength of the top court has risen to 37 judges, leaving only one vacancy against the sanctioned capacity of 38. The appointment of Justice Agarwal also increases the representation of women judges on the bench to three, joining Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice V. Mohana.
Prior to their elevation to the apex court, all three jurists served as Chief Justices of major High Courts. Justice Sunita Agarwal, whose parent bench is the Allahabad High Court, had been serving as the Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court since July 2023. A law graduate from Awadh University with over three decades in the legal field, she was first appointed as a High Court judge in November 2011 and is slated to serve on the Supreme Court bench until April 2031.
Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, also hailing from the Allahabad High Court, previously served as the state’s Chief Standing Counsel before his elevation to the bench in 2011. He took charge as the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court in July 2023 and was subsequently transferred to head the Delhi High Court in January 2025. Meanwhile, Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh, whose parent court is the Jharkhand High Court, graduated in law from the University of Delhi before practising before the Patna and Jharkhand High Courts. Elevated as a High Court judge in 2012, he served as Chief Justice of the Tripura High Court before taking charge as Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court in July 2025.
The formal appointments follow recommendations finalised on September 28 by the five-member Supreme Court Collegium headed by CJI Surya Kant, alongside Justices Vikram Nath, B.V. Nagarathna, M.M. Sundresh, and P.S. Narasimha. The Union Government subsequently cleared and notified the names, bolstering judicial capacity following the statutory increase in the apex court’s sanctioned strength earlier this year.
