Will have to constitute Bench to hear plea against collegium system: CJI

Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud told advocate Mathews J. Nedumpara he would have to constitute a Bench of the Supreme Court to hear a petition seeking an end to the collegium system of judicial appointments.

Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Monday said he would have to constitute a Bench of the Supreme Court to hear a petition seeking an end to the collegium system of judicial appointments.

“I will have to constitute a Bench,” Chief Justice Chandrachud told advocate Mathews J. Nedumpara tersely.

Mr. Nedumpara has been repeatedly, over the past several months, mentioning the case to be heard.

The petition seeks the revival of the National Judicial Appointments Commission or NJAC, which briefly gave the government an equal role along with the judiciary in the appointment of judges to the constitutional courts before it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015.

The petition was filed early last year amidst the verbal attacks by then Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on the collegium system, calling it opaque.

It said the Constitution Bench judgment of October 2015 had thwarted the “will of the people” by striking down the 99th Constitutional Amendment Act which introduced the NJAC mechanism.

The petition has said the 2015 judgment should be rendered void ab initio as it had revived the collegium system. The petitioners called the collegium system a “synonym for nepotism and favouritism.”