Apex court to assess views to improve collegium system

The five-judge Constitution Bench, which struck down the Judicial Appointments Act last month, received a number of suggestions on Tuesday on improving the present collegium system of appointment of judges.

The Bench adjourned the hearing for two days to analyse and filter the recommendations from various parties.  While declaring the Act unconstitutional, the apex court had promised to make the collegium more transparent and acceptable to the public.  

The court made it clear there would be no overhaul of the present method by which five senior-most judges of the Supreme Court select the judges of the high courts and the apex court.

The court has excluded any final say for the executive in the selection, which is the focus of the controversy. The Bench headed by judge J S Khehar asked the counsels to study all the suggestions received from four viewpoints — transparency, eligibility of persons to become judges, mechanism to deal with complaints against candidates, and setting up a permanent secretariat for the collegium.

The court heard Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi, Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, and another senior counsel who had argued against the collegium system and supported the Act.

The judges also heard noted lawyer Fali Nariman, Anil Divan, Arvind Datar and Rajeev Dhawan, who were on the opposite side, while the government counsel defended the now-defunct Act. The court asked senior counsel Datar and Pinky Anand to bring a summary of the proposals so that they can be examined on Thursday when the Bench will resume hearing.

The five-judge Bench consisted of only one dissenter, judge J Chelameswar. The other four judges — Madan Lokur, Kurian Joseph and A K Goel, agreed with Khehar stating that the Act infringed upon the basic structure of the Constitution and the independence of judiciary.

The Act had proposed a six-member panel to select judges, including two ‘eminent persons’ from any field who could veto the selection. This was assailed by the majority judges as giving excessive power to the executive in the selection of judges.