BENGALURU: If a judge has a spine, comes from a minority community, or does not toe the BJP-RSS line, the current BJP-led government simply refuses to appoint them even when the Collegium reiterates the recommendation, said senior advocate and public interest lawyer at the Supreme Court, Prashant Bhushan, during a public talk organised by the All India Lawyers Association for Justice (AILAJ) on Saturday.
Speaking on the theme of “Judicial Accountability and Independence”, Bhushan argued that the very foundation of constitutional democracy is under threat, as the judiciary, especially at the higher levels, is being systematically compromised by the executive.
While the Constitution intended for the judiciary to be protected from legislative and executive pressure, Bhushan said this protection has failed in practice, particularly over the last decade. He recalled how the Supreme Court once limited the government’s role in appointments through the Collegium system, but alleged that the BJP government has found ways to sabotage that very process.
“Whenever the Collegium recommends a name they don’t like — someone too honest, too independent, or simply not aligned with their ideology — the government just sits on the file. They won’t reject it, and they won’t return it. They just keep it pending for years,” he said.
Bhushan called this a direct attack on judicial autonomy. “Sometimes, even when the Collegium reiterates the recommendation — which, as per the law, makes it binding — the government still refuses to issue the notification. The courts, meanwhile, are too timid to act,” he said.
He argued that the Supreme Court should treat repeated recommendations as deemed appointments or hold government officials in contempt for blocking them but the judiciary hasn’t been strong enough to do either, he said.
Many High Court judges today, he said, are doing exactly what the government wants and are failing to protect citizens’ rights, and failing to act when civil liberties are violated.
“Whether it’s the Adani case, the electoral bonds scandal, or massive procurement scams, we are seeing no independent investigations, no accountability,” he said. In the electoral bonds case in particular, Bhushan said there was clear evidence that businesses donated massive sums to the BJP soon after receiving regulatory favours, dropped investigations, or large government contracts.
He also highlighted the erosion of judicial independence as the promise of post-retirement benefits. “Arun Jaitley once said it openly in Parliament — post-retirement jobs affect pre-retirement judgments. That’s exactly what we’ve seen. Post-retirement rewards have become instruments to buy silence or favourable verdicts,” he said.