Supreme Court collegium to have ‘more transparency’

4 areas for improvement, but ‘no wholesale changes’

The Supreme Court on Tuesday framed four important areas for improving the collegium system of judicial appointments — transparency, eligibility criterion, a mechanism to deal with complaints against candidates considered for selection and the need for a separate secretariat for the collegium. The next hearing will be held on Thursday.

At the outset, a five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Justices J.S. Khehar, J. Chelameswar, Madan B. Lokur, Kurian Joseph and A.K. Goel made it clear to all parties: “It (improvement) cannot be a wholesale thing. we can’t touch the parameters already laid down by this court by nine judges. We are all on one side. We can only improve by adding, subtracting or deleting within the parameters. We can build on the suggestions you give.”

Justice Khehar told counsel: “We have received hundreds of opinions and suggestions from all quarters, retired judges, lawyers and others. The diversity is tremendous and unimaginable. We will pass on those suggestions and you can formulate them into ideas.”

Before rising for the day, the bench took into account the suggestions of attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi, solicitor-general Ranjit Kumar and other top advocates, including K.K. Venugopal, who had argued for replacing the collegium system, and those against NJAC, that included senior counsel like Fali S. Nariman, Anil Divan, Rajeev Dhawan, Arvind Dattar and Gopal Subramaniam. The bench put the responsibility on Mr Dattar and additional solicitor-general Pinky Anand to compile the suggestions, which will also include those received by the Supreme Court after its NJAC ruling.

When counsel pleaded for at least 10 days to formulate all the suggestions from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, Justice Khehar said: “Everything (appointments) is stalled now. We can’t delay it further. I have not participated in any collegium meetings (after the October 16 verdict quashing the NJAC law). Many people are waiting and we don’t want to waste time. Let us begin on Thursday. Collect all suggestions and formulate them based on the four issues we have framed.”

Attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi said: “We do not accept the correctness of the judgment. Whatever we say is without prejudice to our stand. Already there is a memorandum of procedure evolved by the government. There must be definite criteria for selection of candidates for high courts and the Supreme Court. The criteria can vary from the bigger high courts to smaller high courts. In the name of seniority, merit should not suffer. Only those who reach this benchmark can be considered for selection. The collegium must record reasons for the selection or rejection of candidates for judgeship.”

Senior lawyer Fali S. Nariman told the bench that the collegium’s job of appointing judges should no longer be a “part-time job, but a full-time one ... and there must be a secretariat”. The collegium must consult a body consisting of distinguished jurists, leading lawyers, judges outside the collegiums, the presidents of the bar associations, he said. The Delhi Judicial Service Association wanted the quota for district judges to be increased from one-third to 50 per cent.