Criterions of the Collegium,if any !!!

Dear friends in my earlier post titled ,"Appointment of Supreme Court Judges ", i posted that there is need for an amendment to the Constitution and the collegium system should be done away with. One interesting thing about the collegium system is that no body knows what are the criterions followed by the collegium in selecting the judges.

Appointment of Judges to the Apex Court of our nation is not a silly matter but one of paramount importance. Why cant this process be made transparent? Let the people also know about whats is happening. Transparency will only bring in credibility. Usually the common man comes to know about the appointments only after the Presidential notification is issued.

The South African Experience

In South Africa, Sections 174 to 178 of the South African Constitution deal with the appointment of judicial officers.Judges may not be members of Parliament, of the government or of political parties. To select judges the Judicial Service Commission first draws up a list of candidates which list must have three or more names than the number of vacancies. The Commission does this after calling for nominations and holding public interviews.Then the President, after consultation with the Chief Justice and the leaders of political parties represented in the National Assembly, chooses the judges from this selection. 

Well in India also the task of appointing of Supreme Court Judges should be left to an independent body which is free from any sort of influence and follows a complete transparent process in all stages of selection of the Judges. Sitting judges of the Apex Court may not be the right persons for the selection of Judges, they are busy with the matters pending in the Court and a sharp scrutiny may not be possible always.

One more thing which needs attention is that there is no proper mechanism to look into corruption charges leveled against the judges.Prashant Bhushan, advocate, Supreme Court, and member, Committee on Judicial Accountability, moots the idea that since there was no credible institution to inquire into charges against judges, a national judicial complaints commission needed to be set up. This body should be independent of both the government and the judiciary. Now, no investigation could be carried out against a sitting judge of a High Court or the Supreme Court without written permission from the Chief Justice of India. 
For the time being, i am stopping here. Will be posting more soon !!!