- The Constitution has bestowed upon the Supreme Court collegium the authority to select fellow judges for the higher judiciary as and when the vacancies arise. Those recommendations are forwarded to the Union Government for clearances before going ahead with the formal appointment process. As you are aware, efforts were made in the past to introduce measures to usher in transparency in the higher judicial appointments. However, nothing concrete could be formulated even as raging debate persists about the whole process shrouded in opaqueness rather than transparency. The issue keeps hitting headlines whenever the SC collegium finds itself questioned for lacking unanimity whilst proceeding ahead with recommendations.
PC: Mihir R
- You would have observed recently about the issue making it to the headlines yet again piquing the interests of the concerned stakeholders and citizens alike. That the five-member Supreme Court collegium issued a clarification, following reported differences over appointment of judges to four SC vacancies, is commendable. This is indeed some positive move towards ensuring transparency as the collegium system of appointing judges are not open to any scrutiny. Take for instance, SC’s statement revealing that the procedure of circulating the judgments of the prospective candidates and making an objective assessment of their relative merit was introduced for the first time in the September 26 collegium meeting.
- This is a very important public disclosure and also startling as such objective criteria should be regular inputs in judges’ selection in the first place. But this was mentioned almost in passing in the clarification. What other yardsticks have been formalized beyond the Second and Third Judges Cases (1993 and 1998) and Justice Department’s Memorandum of Procedure for appointment of judges (1999) stipulations? It must be asked why such an elementary selection procedure like vetting a candidate’s prior verdicts were not used for three decades. The problem lies with too little of the process being codified even as disagreements among collegium members over what constitutes proper procedures can be construed as a good thing.
PC: Mohammad Sahil Khan
- Following SC’s constitution bench striking down the National Judicial Appointments Commission and reinstating the collegium in 2015, SC had tasked the Union Government to finalise a new MoP, which would lay emphasis on transparency and improve the selection of judges by the collegium. Unfortunately, that process was stalled. However, nothing stops the SC collegium from fine tuning, publicizing, and institutionalizing its internal criterial to find judges. Laying emphasis on quality rather than largely quantitative parameters like seniority or number of judgments bolsters collegium’s credibility. As such, the collegium laying down well-defined parameters would go a long way in clearing the cloud surrounding recommendations.
