SC to start hearing ways to improve collegium system today

Times of India: New Delhi: Wednesday, 18 November 2015.

The NDA government has decided to stick to its suggestions submitted to the apex court earlier and not make any fresh submission on improvement of the Supreme Court's collegium system. The matter is listed for hearing in the SC on Wednesday.

The government has already emphasized on making the system more transparent and suggested selection of judges through a consultative exercise involving the executive.

A five-judge SC bench will hear from Wednesday all suggestions received by the law ministry on improving the collegium system. The ministry has received at least 2,000 email responses which it has submitted to a two-member SC committee.

The government had suggested executive participation before finalization of recommendations. It suggested that before the names were finalized for appointment as high court judges, the HC must consult the chief minister of the state.

Another suggestion was that only names cleared by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) should be considered for appointment. "An IB report regarding the candidates must be obtained before the name is sent by the HC collegium to the SC. Only candidates whose names are cleared should be sent to the SC," it had said.

As of now, no consultation is required with the political class before the collegium makes its recommendations. Only after the SC collegium makes a final recommendation does the Centre seeks the governor's and CM's comments.

Similar to the provisions in the NJAC, the government has proposed a permanent secretariat for the collegium in the SC and in each of the HCs.

The proposed secretariat, according to the Centre's suggestion, should have a full-time senior officer in-charge and other staff as necessary, similar to what was there in the NJAC. The secretariat's responsibilities would include collection of background information about members of the bar and district court judges who are to be appointed.

The government has also suggested bringing the collegium under the RTI Act where all information related to selection of judges can be made public to bring transparency in the appointment process.