Having received 1,450 suggestions on reforming collegium running into 11,000 pages, the Supreme Court on Wednesday banked on the Government to suggest to it draft changes to be introduced in the Memorandum of Procedure that regulates functioning of collegium.
The bench of Justices JS Khehar, J Chelameswar, Madan lokur, Kurian Joseph and Adarsh Goel ked Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to consider preparing a draft Memorandum of Procedure (MoP). Once its ready, the Court can examine it and accept points that are agreeable.
Rohatgi took the lead by suggesting to the Court that suggestions should not form part of judicial order and decided to examine if it can be part of MoP. An objection was raised by senior advocate Gopal Subramaniam, who argued that collegium reform must be decided by judiciary and not executive. As the bench is expected to give its order on Thursday, it agreed that A-G may undertake the task as an officer of Court and not as Government’s law officer.
While suggestions on opening collegium discussions to RTI did bother the Court, it admitted that achieving transparency and a permanent Secretariat to assist collegium was broadly agreeable to make judicial appointments open-ended. It proposed different criteria for different HCs and a mechanism at Centre to deal with complaints regarding integrity of candidates in consideration zone.
The avalanche of suggestions harping on making judicial appointments transparent evoked sharp response from the bench. One judge said, “Why should not we have elections instead. What about transparency in other constitutional posts...We must be careful. These suggestions may lead to something else.”
Noted jurist Fali Nariman said it was all about winning confidence of people and judges should win people’s trust by their conduct. Other issues such as prescribing minimum trial court practice for candidates and setting uniform retirement age of 65 for HC and SC judges was also discussed. The hearing will continue on Thursday.