Recommendations of SC Collegium

Of the five names recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium for appointment as Supreme Court Judges, four are Chief Justices, while one of them, Justice S. Abdul Nazeer, is a puisne judge.

Perhaps the reason for selecting Justice Nazeer is that he is a Muslim, and there is no Muslim judge presently in the Supreme Court.

But Justice Nazeer was appointed as an Additional Judge of the Karnataka High Court in 2003, while Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed was appointed as a Delhi High Court Judge in 2002, and is senior to Justice Abdul Nazeer. Justice Badar Ahmed was born in 1956, while Justice Nazeer was born in 1958. Thus, Justice Badar Ahmed is also senior in age.

Justice Badar Ahmed is the seniormost Judge of the Delhi High Court after the Chief Justice of that Court. I was his Chief Justice in 2005-2006, and know him to be an outstanding Judge. If a Muslim was to be chosen for the Supreme Court it should have been the senior of the two.

I was also surprised that Justice K.M. Joseph, presently Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court was not recommended, although he has been an outstanding judge. There is a controversy over this non recommendation

http://www.dnaindia.com/…/report-justice-joseph-left-out-du…

One Way to Fix the Collegium is to Televise its Proceedings

The hearing has begun before the Supreme Court on the question about reforming the Collegium system of appointment of judges. It is almost unanimously agreed that the collegium system lacks transparency, accountability and objectivity because of the secrecy, opaqueness and nepotism it involves, and is in need of glasnost and perestroika – as Justice Kurian Joseph said in his concurring judgment invalidating the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC).

In paragraph 106 of his dissenting judgment in the NJAC case, Justice Chelameshwar said:

“As Bentham has observed, ‘In the darkness of secrecy sinister interest, and evil in every shape, have full swing..’
Transparency is an aspect of rationality. The need for transparency is more in the case of the appointment process. Proceedings of the collegium were absolutely opaque and inaccessible both to public and history, barring occasional leaks. Ruma Pal , J. is on record – “Consensus within the collegium is sometimes resolved through a trade-off, resulting in dubious appointments with disastrous consequences for the litigants and the credibility of the judicial system. Besides, institutional independence has also been compromised by growing sycophancy and ‘lobbying’ within the system.”

Justice Kurian Joseph, agreeing with the above observations, said:

“I agree with Chelameswar, J. that the present collegium system lacks transparency, accountability and objectivity. The trust deficit has affected the credibility of the collegium system, as sometimes observed by the civic society. Quite often, very serious allegations and many a time not unfounded too, have been raised that its approach has been highly subjective. Deserving persons have been ignored wholly for subjective reasons, social and other national realities were overlooked, certain appointments were purposely delayed so as either to benefit vested choices or to deny such benefits to the less patronised, selection of patronised or favoured persons were made in blatant violation of the guidelines resulting in unmerited, if not, bad appointments.

“The dictatorial attitude of the collegium seriously affecting the self-respect and dignity, if not, independence of judges, the court, particularly the Supreme Court, often being styled as the court of the collegium, the looking forward syndrome affecting impartial assessment, etc., have been some of the other allegations in the air for quite some time. These allegations certainly call for a deep introspection as to whether the institutional trusteeship has kept upto the expectations of the framers of the Constitution.”

As reported in the press, Fali Nariman, the doyen of the Indian bar, said, “In Dinakaran’s case, I must say something. Very eminent people from Chennai wanted to say something about Dinakaran to the then CJI ( K.G. Balakrishnan ). Neither the CJI nor any of the members of the collegium agreed to meet them.. We were all hounded out. ”

Ad hoc, and prone to abuse

In this connection I may mention something in my personal knowledge.

When I came to know that the collegium was considering Dinakaran for elevation to the Supreme Court, I went to the chamber of Justice Kapadia, who was then a member of the collegium during a lunch interval and told him in great detail that when I was Chief Justice of Madras High Court, there were very serious allegations against Dinakaran (about alleged land grabs, etc ). I told Justice Kapadia that he was a member of the collegium while I was not, but that I had a duty to inform him about the facts, and now it was up to him to do what he wanted.

Despite my informing Kapadia, the collegium, headed by K.G. Balakrishnan went ahead and recommended Dinakaran for elevation to the Supreme Court, and it was just in the nick of time that the appointment was stalled because of the massive documentary evidence against Dinakaran produced by the Tamil Nadu lawyers, and impeachment proceedings against him by Parliament later.

Later, I reminded Kapadia that I had informed him of all the facts and said that if he had informed the collegium of what I had told him (which evidently he did not) the Supreme Court could have avoided the embarrassment the matter caused. Kapadia admitted that I had indeed informed him, but he could not do anything about it since the CJI (Balakrishnan) was pushing for Dinakaran’s elevation. But surely Kapadia could have informed the collegium of what I told him, and could have asked the collegium to invite me to present my views, which he evidently did not.

I may mention about another undeserving appointment made to the Supreme Court on the recommendation of the collegium. There was a judge originally from Kerala. He was transferred to four high courts, and everywhere he would hardly work, and left about 300-400 judgments undelivered in each place at the time of his transfer. When there was a move to bring him to the Supreme Court, a retired Supreme Court judge, also from Kerala, telephoned the then CJI Balakrishnan and asked why such an undeserving judge was being elevated. Justice Balakrishnan replied that there was no judge from his ‘community’ in the Supreme Court, and so one had to be appointed. Was this a valid reason for such appointment? And why did the other members of the collegium not object?

Even in the Supreme Court he hardly worked, and left many undelivered judgments on his retirement.

There was a further matter that I am privy to. A very senior judge in the Supreme Court, who later became CJI, wanted to get his sibling appointed judge of the Calcutta High Court. He reportedly told the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to recommend the sibling’s name, although the person was then almost 60 years of age (a high court judge retires at 62) and had hardly any practice. This was strongly objected to in writing  by the judge next in seniority to the Chief Justice of the High Court, a judge known to be upright and learned. This so annoyed the Supreme Court judge that he never allowed the Calcutta high court judge to come to the Supreme Court. Consequently, the conscientious judge retired as a chief justice of a high court, while the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court was duly rewarded for recommending the name of the sibling of the Supreme Court judge by himself being elevated to the Supreme Court.

Glasnost time

Confirmation hearing in 2005 of John Roberts, then a nominee for the United States Supreme Court. Credit: senate.gov

I can mention several other instances of recommendations of undeserving persons made by the collegium, most of whom were subsequently appointed, causing great harm to the judiciary.

My opinion is that to ensure transparency, accountability and objectivity, meetings and discussions in the collegium should be video recorded, archived and televised. After all, the people are supreme in a democracy, and the people have a right to know what transpires in the collegium meetings, because ultimately it is they who would be affected if a wrong appointment is made.

In the United States, persons being considered for elevation to the US Supreme Court have to appear before the Senate, where they are questioned by the members not only about their judicial views and performance but also about their personal life, and these proceedings are televised. In my opinion, the persons being considered should be asked to appear before the collegium, and questioned by its members in televised proceedings, so that there is public transparency both about what the collegium is looking for in a judge and what the judge herself or himself has to offer.

(Published first on The wire)

My proposal regarding the National Judicial Commission

(1) The Collegium system has been artificially created by Judges in the Judges cases, since there is no mention of a Collegium system in Article 124(2) of the Constitution. The Judges virtually amended the Constitution in the Judges cases, which could legitimately only be done by Parliament under Article 368 of the Constitution.

(2) The Collegium systrem should be replaced by a National Judicial Commission consisting of 7 members, viz. the first 4 seniormost Supreme Court Judges( i.e. the CJI and the next 3 seniormost Judges), the Law Minister of India. the leader of the opposition, or if there is no leader of the opposition, the leader of the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha ( or his/her nominee), and a distinguished jurist appointed by the President of India. Thus the Commission will have a majority of Judges, and thus the dominant voice will be of Judges. However the Government and the Opposition will also have a say in the matter.

(3) This 7 member Commission should first do a pre-scrutiny and then prepare a list of eligible and meritorious persons whom they have selected for being considered for appointment.

(4) The candidates in this list should be called for hearings before the Commission, which should be televised so that everyone in India can get to know about the proceedings. In these hearings the Commission members can, and should, ask the candidate about his past career, his views on several issues of public importance, and even his personal life. This is the process followed in U.S.A. when candidates nominated by the President have to appear before the Senate, where they are asked several questions.

When I suggested televising these proceedings in the NDTV panel discussion anchored by Sonia Singh, many members of the panel opposed the idea. But what is wrong with it ? In a democracy the people are supreme, and judges and other state authorities are only servants of the people, as the great French political philosopher Rousseau said. So should the master ( the people) not know what kind of servant is going to be appointed ? I believe they must know, to ensure transparency.

( Watch the complete interview with CNN IBN: http://ibnlive.in.com/cnnibnvideos/top-in/489095.html )

Let’s make judges selection more transparent

A BEAUTIFUL BUILDING IS NOT EVERYTHING: The present system of selection is secretive and subjective. The picture is of Court No. One of the Madras High Court. Photo: V. Ganesan

Wide consultation, rather than the closed-door deliberations of the collegium, is what the Supreme Court and the High Courts need

The decisions of the Supreme Court in the two judges cases in 1993 and 1998 have been criticised because they have not only practically amended the Constitution (which could only have been done by Parliament) by inventing a collegium system unknown to the Constitution, but also because the working of the collegium system has often been found defective. I would, therefore, like to describe my preferred method of recommending names for appointment.

I came to Chennai as Chief Justice of the Madras High Court in November 2004. The sanctioned strength of High Court Judges here was then 49 (60 today). At the time, there were about 23 or 24 vacancies, which meant that about half the posts in the High Court were lying vacant.

I was a total stranger to Tamil Nadu as I had come from Uttar Pradesh. I had been a lawyer in the Allahabad High Court, and thereafter a judge there.

Every institution is really about the personnel manning it. So, a High Court is not really about a beautiful building or beautiful lawns but the judges who man it. They should be first class people in conduct and in legal knowledge. I was determined to recommend good names for appointment as High Court Judges and not bow to pressure.

This was the method I adopted:

I requested a dozen sitting judges of the High Court, in order of seniority, to give me a list of lawyers of the High Court whom they thought deserved to be appointed as High Court judges.

I also requested four or five very senior and respected lawyers of the Madras High Court to give their lists. I also consulted some respected retired judges.

Thus I got about 17 or 18 lists.

I received those lists, and, along with my two senior most colleagues, found certain names to be common in many lists. Enquiries were made even about those names. We also considered some names which were not very common. This exercise went on for two to three months and ultimately there was consensus. It was these names which were recommended for appointment. I then went to Delhi and met the then Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, Mr. Justice Lahoti, and informed him about the methodology I had adopted.

I told him that I had insisted that I would only recommend the names of persons who had a great reputation and good practice, were non-controversial and not too close to any political party (otherwise such persons would not be neutral and impartial). I also referred to what was said by a Lord Chancellor of England (who had then the authority to recommend names for appointment of British High Court judges) that the person whom he would recommend must be a gentleman, and it would do no harm if he knew a little law! (The second part of this sentence should not be taken literally because it is certain that a person to be appointed as a judge must know some law! What I meant was that if a person has put in 20 years as a lawyer, he is bound to know some law. More important, thereafter, is that he should be of high character.)

I told Mr. Justice Lahoti that the methodology that I had adopted was a result of a consensus after wide consultation with about 20 persons including sitting judges, respected retired judges and very senior respected lawyers of the High Court.

Since none of the persons I had recommended was either known to me (except for their performances in cases they argued before me) or belong to my caste or community, I had no personal interest in any such person. Hence it was up to the Supreme Court Collegium to approve or disapprove the names. In any case, I told him, it would not, in any way, bother me if any name was rejected because I had no personal interest.

Ignoring pressure

I must add that certain important people did try to influence me in this connection, but I paid no heed to them as I was determined to do my duty to the Madras High Court, come what may. As a result of that, almost all my recommendations were accepted, and 17 judges were appointed to the Madras High Court in December 2005, a record for that High Court.

In my opinion, the methodology which was adopted by me should also be adopted for making recommendations for appointment of judges in the Supreme Court as well as in all High Courts. The present system, based on the decisions of the Supreme Court in the Judges Case, is defective as there is a lot of subjectivity. In my opinion, the Judges Cases should not be understood to mean that only the five senior most judges of the Supreme Court (three senior most for the High Courts) should be consulted for appointment as Supreme Court and High Court Judges. There should be very wide consultation with at least 15 to 20 people who are highly reputed as judges, former judges, senior lawyers. After this, the consensus which emerges should be recommended.

I was the sixth in seniority in the Supreme Court. But I regret that I was never consulted by the Chief Justice. The five senior most judges met in a highly secretive manner for deciding whom to recommend as a judge of the Supreme Court. This manner severely restricts the inputs which are required for making high quality recommendations. Justice Ms Ruma Pal, former Judge of the Supreme Court, said that deliberations of the collegium are “a complete mystery.” It should not be so in a democracy, where there should be transparency, otherwise allegations are bound to arise, however unfounded, that improper recommendations have been made for extraneous considerations.

I, therefore, recommend to the Chief Justice and to the Chief Justices of all High Courts, that they should follow the same method I adopted for appointment of judges in the Supreme Court and all High Courts, and not limit the consultations to only Collegium members. In my opinion, the decisions of the Supreme Court in the cases of 1993 and 1998 should be understood in their proper perspective, and not in a narrow sense.

(Markandey Katju, a former Chief Justice of the Madras and Delhi High Courts, former Acting Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court and former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, is currently Chairman of the Press Council of India.)

Published in The Hindu on 03/01/2013