The Collegium System And The Indian Judiciary: A Critical Analysis Of Opacity, Accountability, And The Path To Constitutional Reform
Divishi Suri, OP Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal University
ABSTRACT
The Collegium system, though born of a constitutionally defensible imperative to safeguard judicial independence against executive overreach, has over three decades evolved into an institution that is difficult to justify on democratic grounds. This paper argues that the Collegium's central defect is not merely administrative opacity, but a deeper structural failure: it has concentrated the power of self-perpetuation within the higher judiciary without any of the institutional safeguards that ordinarily accompany such power in a constitutional democracy. Through a critical examination of the four Judges Cases, Articles 124(2) and 217(1) of the Constitution, the persistent failure of the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), and empirical data on judicial diversity and vacancies released in May 2025, this paper demonstrates that the Collegium has not merely fallen short of transparency it has actively resisted it. The paper further argues that the Supreme Court's invalidation of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), while constitutionally defensible in its outcome, was doctrinally incomplete in its remedy: it restored the old system without curing its diagnosed pathologies. Drawing on comparative models from the United Kingdom, South Africa, Germany, and Canada, and cautionary lessons from Poland, Hungary, and Turkey, this paper proposes a statutory, constitutionally insulated Judicial Appointments Commission that preserves judicial primacy while institutionalising structured transparency, enforceable timelines, and diversity mandates. The central contention is this: judicial independence is not a licence for unaccountability, and a judiciary that appoints itself in secret cannot credibly claim to be the guardian of constitutional values it does not itself practise.
Keywords: Collegium System, Judicial Independence, NJAC, Basic Structure Doctrine, Transparency, Judicial Accountability, Memorandum of Procedure, Constitutional Reform, Judicial Appointments Commission, Nemo Judex in Causa Sua.
