NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud on Saturday said the collegium system for appointing judges to the Supreme Court and high courts is not perfect but this is the best that has been developed.
Laying emphasis on the purpose for which this system was introduced, the CJI while speaking at the India Today Conclave, said, “I am not saying that any system is perfect but this is the best that we have developed. The object of this system: this system was devised for the simple reason that the independence of the judiciary is of cardinal value and you have to insulate the Indian judiciary from outside influences if the judiciary has to truly be independent. That is the underlined feature and purpose of the collegium. As CJI, I have to take the system that has been given to us as of today which is that the collegium system is the prevalent system for appointing judges.”
With regards to the Law Minister’s displeasure on Supreme Court collegium’s move to make public the Intelligence Bureau (IB) reports, which underscored the reasons for rejecting the name of Advocate Saurabh Kirpal as Delhi HC judge, he said it was just a difference of perception.
“Let me join issue with the Law Minister. He has a perception, I have a perception and there is bound to be difference in perceptions. What’s wrong to have difference in perceptions? Sometimes there is a difference. We have to deal with differences in perception within the judiciary. There are differences even within the government, but we all deal with it with the sense of robust constitutional statesmanship. I don’t want to join issue with the Law Minister for his perception. I respect his perception and I am sure he also has great deal of respect for ours as well,’ the CJI said.
Justice Chandrachud said the collegium’s decision to upload the reasons on the website was in pursuance of the desire of present collegium to meet the criticism of “lack of transparency.” He said that Kirpal was open about his sexual orientation and when this was flagged by the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the collegium had not opened up IB’s source of information.
“Collegium did not falter on Saurabh Kirpal’s case. The collegium did make a recommendation, collegium did reiterate. So how do you say collegium system is bad? The fault lies somewhere else, if at all,” he stated.Terming the democracy as “robust” and urging the citizens to “have trust in it”, the CJI said that there is no question of any pressure from the government.