Collegium System Must Not be Derailed Supreme Court of India

Collegium System Must Not be Derailed Supreme Court of India

The Supreme Court said on Friday that the collegium system should not be derailed by the statements of “some busybody,” claiming that the highest court was one of the most transparent institutions.

Amid internal divisions and a simmering dispute with the government over the system by which existing judges appoint judges to constitutional courts, the judiciary said it did not want to comment on what a few former apex court judges who were once members of the Collegium were now saying about the mechanism.

“Nowadays, it has become a fashion to comment on earlier decisions (of the Collegium) made when they (former judges) were members of the Collegium,” a Bench of Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar said. Allow the existing Collegium system to continue.”

The court was hearing a petition by RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj challenging a Delhi High Court order dismissing her request for the agenda of the Collegium’s meeting on December 12, 2018, when certain decisions on the elevation of some judges to the Supreme Court were allegedly made.