Restoring Credibility

The tenure of the previous chief justices of India revealed a lack of consensus among the collegium members. The new chief justice needs to take this seriously, along with other judicial issues that need to be addressed urgently to restore the credibility of the Supreme Court

- Dr Lokendra Malik

JUSTICE SA Bobde became the first chief justice of India (CJI) who could not make even a single recommendation for appointing a judge to the Supreme Court during his tenure spanning over 17 months. One main reason behind this failure appears to be the lack of consensus among the collegium members.

Currently, the Supreme Court has seven vacancies of judges, and four more judges will retire by the end of this year. Surprisingly, the last appointment of a judge in the Supreme Court was made in September 2019 during the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi’s tenure. In his last days in office, CJI Bobde called a meeting of the collegium, despite reservations of at least two of his colleagues, to build consensus. Unfortunately, he failed to break the deadlock. It shows that the trust deficit amongst collegium members runs deep and the new CJI should take it seriously.

Under the Indian constitutional scheme and practice and established after three judgments of the Supreme Court relating to judges’ appointments delivered in 1993, 1999, and 2015, respectively, the president of India appoints the judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts in consultation with the CJI and some of his seniormost colleagues. Though the consultation with the CJI has always been mandatory, it was not very effective in the pre-collegium system in which the central government’s position was very powerful. But in the collegium system, the president is bound to appoint the judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts on the recommendations of the Supreme Court collegium headed by the CJI and consisting of some of his seniormost colleagues who finalise the names of judges by consensus.