No justification to keep even a single vacancy in SC: CJI

There cannot be any justification for the collegium to keep even a single vacancy unfilled in the Supreme Court, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud said, as he announced involving Centre for Research and Planning (CRP) , the in-house think tank of the top court, in the process of preparing a list of probables for future appointments in the top court.

“One of my missions has been to ensure that a full-strength Supreme Court is not an aberration but a regular feature. There is absolutely no justification or reason for the collegium to keep even a single vacancy unfilled in the Supreme Court and that will be my mission for the future as well,” said the CJI, addressing an event in the top court precincts on April 11. As many as six judges in the Supreme Court will retire this year.

CRP, he announced, has now been tasked to assist the permanent secretariat in the top court, which deals with various aspects of judicial appointments, including collection of information, preparation of records and putting them up before the collegium. The CJI said that CRP has been directed to collect data of the top 50 judges in the country for selection as future Supreme Court judges.

“This was never done...So, we now have in place data pertaining to the top 50 judges in order of seniority. We have their judgments before us, we have the number of reportable judgments which they have delivered. The idea is to promote a sense of objectivity in the work which the collegium does. So, CRP will now merge so to speak its activities with the permanent secretariat of the Chief Justice of India,” said justice Chandrachud.

The announcement by the CJI to involve CRP in the process of shortlisting candidates comes more than three months after the Union government wrote to justice Chandrachud expressing the need to have a search-cum-evaluation committee (SEC) for bringing in more transparency and objectivity in the process of judicial appointments.

The government wrote to the CJI on January 6, underlining that the government is an “important stakeholder in the process of appointment of judges in the Supreme Court and high courts” and therefore, its views should also find a place in preparation for the panel of names who are eligible for being appointed as judges of the constitutional courts. The CJI, according to people aware of the matter, is yet to respond to this.

During his address at the event organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) to felicitate eight recently appointed judges in the Supreme Court, justice Chandrachud addressed the concerns regarding the lack of transparency in the collegium system.

He said that as part of the collegium, his emphasis has been on promoting transparency. “As you all know, we put up reasons for the resolutions which we pass...whether it is in terms of appointment of judges of the high court or whether it is in terms of appointment of chief justices or transfer of judges,” said justice Chandrachud.

He pointed out that all the sitting top court judges were appointed in different high courts between 2006 and 2011, highlighting the sum total of their cumulative experience as judges works out to be about 121 years. “121 years, 13 states, one Union territory...This gives you an idea of the diversity and the depth of the experience which our colleagues bring to the bench,” said the CJI.

He further said: “Very often, we are criticised as the collegium and as the institution in regard to the source from which we make judicial appointments. We are criticised on the ground that we are not diverse enough, we are not democratic enough. I ask myself a simple question -- what other tribute to diversity can you have than my eight colleagues who are present today on the dias?”

The SCBA event was organised to felicitate justices Dipankar Datta, Pankaj Mithal, Sanjay Karol, Sanjay Kumar, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Manoj Mishra, Rajesh Bindal and Aravind Kumar.

CRP was set up in the Supreme Court in 2018 by the then CJI, Ranjan Gogoi, to strengthen the knowledge infrastructure of Supreme Court. Apart from research, CRP is mandated to focus on outreach that will include explaining key decisions of the SC as well as its contributions to law and justice, and on the working of courts.