Article 124 is a foundational provision in the Constitution of India that deals with the Establishment and Constitution of the Supreme Court. It is part of Part V, Chapter IV of the Constitution, which outlines the structure of the Union Judiciary. The provision was created to establish the apex judicial authority in India and was debated as Draft Article 103 on May 24, 1949.
The Article lays down the framework for the Supreme Court, which consists of the Chief Justice of India and other judges, the number of which Parliament can increase by law. Key mechanisms include Article 124(2), which mandates that the President appoints every judge. A person must be a citizen of India and have at least five years as a High Court Judge or ten years as a High Court Advocate, or be a distinguished jurist, to be qualified for appointment under Article 124(3). Judges hold office until the age of 65 years. The removal of a judge is a difficult process, requiring a Presidential order following an address by both Houses of Parliament supported by a special majority on the grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity, as specified in Article 124(4).
The interpretation of Article 124(2) connects it directly to the collegium system, a judge-led appointment mechanism developed through judicial pronouncements like the Three Judges Cases. A significant recent change occurred when the Constitution (Ninety-Ninth Amendment) Act, 2014, introduced Article 124A to replace the collegium with the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC). However, the Supreme Court struck down the amendment and the NJAC Act in 2015 in the case of Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India, ruling that the NJAC violated the basic structure of the Constitution by compromising the independence of the judiciary. This judgment revived the collegium system, leaving the core mechanism of judicial appointments under Article 124 essentially unchanged from the judicial interpretation established in the 1990s.