I think either Sergey Brin or Larry Page once said that around 100 links per page was an upper limit number or something like that.
I am not an expert but I don't think you should sacrifice good internal navigation for any reason. In fact I remember damaging a couple of good sites trying to follow that plan.
Ranjeet Singh: It is 2014. Any number you get for the answer would do more harm than good for your website. Aim for quality, not numbers.