Supreme Court collegium to have ‘more transparency’

New Delhi: 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 got 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.

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