Supreme Court Collegium

 The Supreme Court collegium on Friday made public the names of 37 additional high court judges it has recommended for appointment as permanent judges of the high courts of Allahabad, Rajasthan, Kerala, Gujarat and Bombay. The collegium in a resolution said it had received certain complaints against some of the recommendees in the high courts of Bombay, Gujarat and Rajasthan, but did not see any merit in them. 

The Supreme Court of India's collegium system, which appoints judges to the nation's constitutional courts, has its genesis in, and continued basis resting on, three of its own judgments which are collectively known as the Three Judges Cases. Following are the three cases: S. P. Gupta v. Union of India - 1982[1] (also known as the Judges' Transfer case); Supreme Court Advocates-on Record Association vs Union of India – 1993; and, In re Special Reference 1 of 1998. 

Over the course of the three cases, the court evolved the principle of judicial independence to mean that no other branch of the state - including the legislature and the executive - would have any say in the appointment of judges. The court then created the collegium system, which has been in use since the judgment in the Second Judges Case [2] was issued in 1993. There is no mention of the collegium either in the original Constitution of India or in successive amendments. 

Although the creation of the collegium system was viewed as controversial by legal scholars and jurists outside India[citation needed], her citizens, and notably, Parliament and the executive, have done little to replace it. The Third Judges Case of 1998 is not a case but an opinion delivered by the Supreme Court of India responding to a question of law regarding the collegium system, raised by then President of India K. R. Narayanan, in July 1998 under his constitutional powers. 

Further, in January 2013, the court dismissed as without locus standi, a public interest litigation filed by NGO Suraz India Trust that sought to challenge the collegium system of appointment. The National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) is envisaged by the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act and the 99th Constitutional Amendment in 2014. On 16 October 2015 the Constitution Bench of Supreme Court by 4:1 Majority upheld the collegium system and struck down the NJAC as unconstitutional, writes Wikipedia.