Diamond Jubilee Celebration of Supreme Court will be Inaugurated by PM

On January 28th, the Diamond Jubilee celebration of the Supreme Court of India will be inaugurated by the honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Supreme Court auditorium. 

• The event will mark the seventy-fifth year of the Supreme Court. The Prime Minister will unveil citizen-centric information and technology initiatives that include Digital Supreme Court Reports (Digi SCR), Digital Courts 2.0 and a new website for the Supreme Court. 
• The Digital Supreme Court Reports (SCR) will make Supreme Court judgments available to the country's citizens in an electronic format, free of charge.
• The digital SCR's key features include the availability of all 519 volumes of the Supreme Court reports since 1950, covering 36,308 cases, in a digital format. It will also be bookmarked, user-friendly and have open access.
• Digital Courts 2.0 is a recent initiative under the e-Courts project to make court records available in electronic form to the judges of the district courts. It is coupled with artificial intelligence (AI) for transcribing speech to text in real-time.
• The Prime Minister will also launch the Supreme Court's new website in bilingual English and Hindi. The website has been redesigned with a user-friendly interface.

About Supreme Court

• The Supreme Court of India was established on January 26th, 1950, on Tilak Marg in New Delhi. It was inaugurated on January 28th, 1950, just two days after India became a Sovereign Democratic Republic. 
• The inauguration occurred in the Chamber of Princes in the Parliament building that also housed India's Parliament.
• This Parliament comprised the Council of States and the House of the People. 
• The Federal Court of India sat for 12 years between 1937 and 1950 in the Chamber of Princes, later to become the home of the Supreme Court for many years. The Supreme Court later moved to its premises.

Supreme Court Judges

The Supreme Court of India has the Chief Justice and 33 other judges, all of whom  are appointed by the President of India.

Tenure: When a Supreme Court judge turns 65, they retire. To become a Supreme Court Judges, one must be an Indian citizen and have served in a High Court for at least five years or be an Advocate in a High Court for at least 10 years or be considered a distinguished jurist by the President. 

• The law provides for appointing a High Court Judge as an Ad-hoc Judge in the Supreme Court and retired Judges of the Supreme Court or High Courts can also serve as Judges in that Court.

Removal: The Constitution of India strives to ensure the autonomy of Supreme Court Judges through several measures. 

• A Supreme Court Judge can only be removed from their post by an order from the President, which is passed after an address in each House of Parliament supported by a majority of the total membership of that House and by at least two-thirds of members present and voting. 
• The order must be presented to the President in the same session to remove a judge for proven misconduct or incapacity. 
• Furthermore, anyone who has served as a judge of the Supreme Court is prohibited from practicing in any court of law or before any other authority in India.

Article: The Supreme Court conducts proceedings in English only. The Supreme Court Rules were framed under Article 145 of the Constitution to regulate its practice and procedure