New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said that there will be no change in the collegium system in the matter of appointment of judges. “We are the most transparent institution,” the top court said while hearing a case under the Right to Information Act seeking information about the collegium’s meeting on the appointment of judges on Saturday. ’
’A bench of Justices M R Shah and C T Ravikumar on Saturday reserved its verdict on the petition seeking information on the collegium meeting. During the hearing of the case, the petitioner’s lawyer Bhushan alleged that there was no expected transparency in the disclosure of the minutes of the collegium meeting on December 12, 2018.For the past few weeks, Kiren Rijiju, the law minister in the Narendra Modi government, has been questioning the collegium system of appointing judges.
The Supreme Court has previously expressed dissatisfaction over this. The apex court also accused the Centre of being complicit in appointing judges at the higher judicial level. A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and A S Oka on Monday pulled up the Centre and said there was “unnecessary delay” on the part of the government in giving its consent to the name recommended by the collegium for appointment as a judge.In such a situation, a two-judge bench announced ‘transparency’ in the matter of seeking information about the collegium meeting. During the hearing, the bench said, “Under no circumstances should there be any attempt to derail the collegium system. The debate over the appointment of judges in the collegium system has been going on for a long time.
The collegium, comprising five top judges of the Supreme Court, recommends the names of potential judges. After that, those names are considered by the government. The government may send back the name for reconsideration of the collegium. But if the collegium sends back those names, the government is bound to accept them. Recently, Rijiju had publicly alleged that there was opacity in the current collegium system. Even, this appointment of judges .He called the system “an outsider to the Constitution of India”. The top court on Monday termed the Union Law Minister’s remarks as “disappointing”.
After the Modi government came to power, the National Justice Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act was enacted in 2015. However, a five-judge bench of the apex court dismissed it as unconstitutional and ruled in favour of maintaining the collegium system. Since then, the Centre and the Supreme Court have been at loggerheads over the issue.
