The Indian judicial system discusses the Supreme Court, the High Court, and the Subordinate Courts that make up India’s three levels of judicial hierarchy. The judiciary is a crucial component of the government, and its role is made even more critical by a Constitution that ensures the separation of powers between the federal government and the states and an independent judicial system. As taught in law colleges admission in West Bengal that Article 124 of the Indian constitution states the establishment and composition of the supreme court. The President will choose a Supreme Court Judge by getting it signed by him and sealed. The President will then consult with the judges of the Supreme Court and the State High Courts to see if they think the person should be appointed to the Supreme Court. But later time to time the Collegium System evolved,
It didn’t come into being through an act or constitutional provisions. It evolved from the three judges’ case.
- First Judge Case, 1982 – The Court ruled in this case that any kind of consultation to appoint judges could not constitute consent. It is just an exchange of opinions between people on common decisions.
- 1993 Second case – Court reverses previous decision, holding that consultation implies consent. The Chief Justice of India ‘CJI’ advised, after consultations with two senior colleagues.
- Third Judge Case, 1998 – The Court said that majority deliberation was necessary and therefore a “collegium” consisting of his four senior judges of his Apex Court with the CJI I judged.
This system is an unclear system that deals with the appointment and upgradation of the advocates and the judges of the supreme court of India.
As taught in law study in West Bengal under this system it will be decided by the quorum headed by the chief justice of India and the four of the most senior judges of the supreme court, the main function is to decide who is the best suited for the job and appoint him accordingly. In this system the “judges appoint judges”.
The central government must submit to the collegium the names of candidates they think qualified, conversely the collegium must submit the names of the candidates it believes merit is the honour. The collegium then creates a file and submits it for the review of the central government and then after investigation of the names and fact-checked it resends the file to the collegium to reconsider and respond to the suggestions. But The collegium recommendation is binding on the Indian central government. The government is obligated to give its approval if the collegium resends the file with the same name after rejecting the government’s suggestions. Thus it makes the judiciary independent from interference but not from the independence of accountability.
In recent times as taught in law study in West Bengal, CPIO VS SUBHASH CHANDRA AGARWAL, Subhash Agarwal was an activist, He filed an RTI according to the right to information act, 2005 to the central public information officer, Mr. Agarwal requested information about the release of the collegium notes regarding the appointment and elevation of the three supreme court judges including justice R M Lodha, justice H.l Dattu and Justice A K Ganguly. it was asserted that all Indian seniority had been suppressed by the appointment or elevation of the above-named judges to which the prime minister was supposed to object.
A five- judges constitution bench which was headed by the chief justice Mr. Ranjan Gogoi oversaw the proceedings of the above-mentioned case, the issues which were raised were
- The letters that the collegium and the government exchanged were requested
- The declaration of judges’ assets was requested to be made available through RTI.
Thus, the supreme court upheld the 88-page judgement of the high court against Mr. Agarwal that the RTI has jurisdiction over the CJI’s office but not the Collegium which is unaffected and the process is unknown and opaque. It was stated that the decisions which were made citing the concerns related to privacy and security and the fact of disclosing the rationale behind the appointments of judges, would be inconsistent with the independence of the judiciary.
After law colleges admission in West Bengal, the importance of Filing an RTI under the RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT is being informed to the students of law. According to that, my opinion is through this unclear nature of the appointment procedure, it can be presumed that a group of the most favourable members of the judicial system enjoy unfair immunity from the selection process, just because no one knows about the system and no one can challenge it nor question it by filing an RTI.
