In the early years, a full bench of the Supreme Court sat together to hear the cases presented before them. As the work of the Court increased and cases began to accumulate, Parliament increased the number of judges (including the Chief Justice) from the original 8 in 1950 to 11 in 1956, 14 in 1960, 18 in 1978, 26 in 1986, 31 in 2009, to 34 in 2019. As the number of the judges has increased, they sit in smaller benches of two or three (referred to as a division bench)[15]—coming together in larger benches of five or more (referred to as a constitution bench) when required to settle fundamental questions of law.