Former Chief Justice NV Raman.
– Photo : PTI (File photo)
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Former Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Raman on Saturday said the concerns raised in various quarters, including the government, related to the functioning of the Supreme Court collegium system cannot be ignored or dismissed.
The former CJI said the Supreme Court passed several judgments declaring the collegium system necessary to ensure independence of the judiciary. He further said that the judiciary is one of the many parties involved in this process. Justice Ramana also said that the lack of an institutional mechanism in the judiciary to ensure diversity on the bench is a problem.
Justice Ramana was addressing the National Cultural Diversity Summit of the Asian Australian Lawyers Association Inc online on the topic “Cultural Diversity and the Legal Profession”. The former CJI said that these include several authorities, including the state or central government, as the case may be. Several concerns have been raised in various quarters including the government, lawyers’ groups and civil society regarding the functioning of the collegium system in India. These cannot be ignored or isolated, and are certainly worth considering.
He said last month Law and Justice Minister Kiren Rijiju had suggested that there is a need to rethink the collegium system to expedite the process of appointments in the higher judiciary as there are concerns about the existing process. He said the system in place is creating trouble and everyone knows it.
In 2014, the NDA government tried to change the system of appointment of judges. The National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, brought in in 2014, would have given the executive a major role in the appointment of judges in the higher judiciary. But it was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2015. Raman said that diversity on the bench leads to diversity of ideas, which are based on their differing experiences in the world.
He said judges in the High Courts and Supreme Court in India are appointed through the ‘collegium system’, in which the five senior-most judges of the top court have full power to decide who should be appointed to the judiciary.
The former CJI said that during his tenure he tried to ensure appointment of judges from diverse backgrounds. He said that “During my tenure as the Chief Justice of India, I tried to ensure diversified representation in the bench through my recommendations. Almost all the recommendations made by us were accepted by the Government of India.”
“I can proudly say that our recommendations have resulted in the largest ever appointment of women judges to the Supreme Court of India. There is also a possibility of India getting the first woman Chief Justice.”