The aam aadmi will finally get a say in the appointment of judges as the Supreme Court on Thursday invited suggestions from the public on how to introduce transparency and efficiency in the collegium system of judges-appointing-judges.
It is a historic step considering the fact that judicial appointments have so far been a closed door affair with only judges having a say on how the collegium must function.
Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi, who volunteered to host a public notice on the Ministry of law and Justice’s website, was asked to do so at the earliest by the apex court as suggestions received till 5 pm on November 13 will be taken into account on the next date of hearing on November 18 and 19.
The five-judge Bench that struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act (NJAC) by a 4:1 verdict had invited suggestions from lawyers on November 3 under four heads, transparency, eligibility criteria for judges, permanent Secretariat to act as
full-time office for judicial appointments and mechanism to deal with complaints against candidates.
On Thursday, a compilation of 60 representations received from organisations and lawyers was submitted to the SC by a two-member panel comprising Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand and senior advocate Arvind Datar that had laboriously sifted through each representation and categorized it under the four heads.
Just when the Bench of Justices JS Khehar,J Chelameswar, Madan B lokur, Kurian Joseph and Adarsh Goel was to take a call on the next step, several lawyers stood up and complained that when the SC was sitting on a historic debate, it was essential to gather information from all possible quarters.
Some even quarreled that the suggestions made by them found no mention in the compilation. Noted jurist Fali S Nariman proposed that the suggestions could be put on the SC’s website and time should be given for inviting further suggestions.
Justice Joseph asked if any “academicians gave recommendations” as he noted that though the Constitution provides for appointing distinguished jurists as judges, not a single person under this category has ever been selected. Interestingly, not a single suggestion came seeking quota for women in judicial appointments although it was an admitted fact that the ratio of women judges in the country is skewed in favour of male judges with nine HCs not having a single woman judge.
However, the turning point was the presence of Bar Council of India (BCI) Chairman Manan K Mishra. He informed the Bench that the BCI has called a meeting of all State Bar Councils and Bar Association representatives on November 14 to discuss the issue and gather suggestions. The Bench valued this suggestion and as an exception, allowed the BCI to submit its suggestions by November 14, a day after the cutoff ends for receiving suggestions. The suggestions will be collated by the two-member panel and submitted to the court on the next date of hearing.
Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium struck a discordant note by suggesting there must be an early end to the hearing on reforming the collegium in order to complete the final order striking down the NJAC. In his view, appointment of judges was being held up and the collegium was unable to meet. “Our purview is limited to selection (of judges) within the parameters laid down by the nine-judge Bench decision (of 1998) and nothing beyond it. We have no business to delay the collegium meetings or telling them to do so….BCI is a very important organ. We feel another opportunity should be given so that everybody who wants to give suggestions can do so.”
The court appointed a Committee of Attorney General, BCI Chairman and Nariman to decide the number of lawyers who will argue on both sides by allotting them time on November 18 and 19.