- from the Third Judges’ Case 1998
- consists of
- Consensus based approach has to be followed
- entire process should be performed in writing and if due procedure not followed, opinion shall not be binding on the President
- in case of appt or transfer of HC judges, CJI must consult:
- 2 most senior judges of SC
- CJ of concerned HC
- any judge(s) of the SC familiar with functioning of that HC
- in case of transfer of judges, must consult CJ of the two HC
- in case of appt. of judges to SC, if any 2 judges disagree on a name, then collegium must drop that name
- even a 5+1 collegium bench can be formed in case the next CJI is not part of the 4 seniormost judges of SC
Issues with the collegium system
- no transparency
- allegations of nepotism, favoritism
- role of exec compromised & diluted
- India only country where judges appt themselves
- checks and balances missing
- tends to favour particular sections of society
- not representative
- no ppl from marginalized sections
- only 11 female judges out of 230+ SC judges
- tend to threaten justice delivery mechanism
- inordinate delays on appt. of HC judges
- depleting numbers in higher judiciary
- can be attributed to lack of secretariat to help collegium in its functioning
- eg. out of sanctioned 1098 strength in 25 HC, only 645 are filled
- Justice JS Verma (principal author in Second Judges’ Case 1993): collegium system has been a failure
- despite primacy of exec, some of the finest judges appted in first 4 decades
- in last 3 decades, appt thru collegium have often turned out to be erroneous
- some critics argues that collegium system amounts to rewriting of constitution