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CJI tells Centre not to act on collegium picks ‘selectively’
CJI Bhushan R Gavai urges the government to avoid selective action on collegium recommendations.
Chief Justice of India Bhushan R Gavai has conveyed to the Union government that the Centre should refrain from selectively acting on collegium recommendations, emphasising that appointments and transfers should not be cleared in instalments or by segregating names.
According to people familiar with the matter, Justice Gavai issued this message after presiding over his first collegium meeting on May 26, which recommended a sweeping overhaul of key judicial positions across the country.
“CJI Gavai was emphatic that segregating names from a batch of recommendations not only disturbs the seniority of judges but also sends an improper message about the collegium’s authority and functioning,” a person aware of the development said. This person pointed out that some of the recommendations made by CJI Gavai’s predecessors have remained pending till date after the government segregated them.
In a decisive opening move, CJI Gavai led the collegium in recommending the elevation of three high court judges -- Justices NV Anjaria, Vijay Bishnoi, and AS Chandurkar, to the Supreme Court. Apart from Justice Gavai, the collegium comprised Justices Surya Kant, Vikram Nath, JK Maheshwari, and BV Nagarathna. The Union government acted with speed, notifying the appointments on May 30, allowing the top court to reach its full sanctioned strength of 34 judges.
The same meeting also proposed the appointment of five new chief justices -- Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva (Rajasthan), Justice Vibhu Bakhru (Karnataka), Justice Ashutosh Kumar (Gauhati), Justice Vipul M Pancholi (Patna), and Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan (Jharkhand). In addition, four sitting chief justices were rotated between Madras, Rajasthan, Tripura, Telangana and Jharkhand high courts.
In addition, this meeting proposed transferring 22 judges to various high courts based on administrative need and personal requests. The Delhi High Court, notably, received a proposed infusion of six judges, reflecting a focus on enhancing transparency in judicial appointments and accountability.
These decisions follow the Supreme Court’s recent strides towards openness, including the publication of collegium resolutions, judge profiles, and asset declarations on its official website – part of a transparency initiative launched under former CJI Sanjiv Khanna in early May.
Another person familiar with the matter said that all collegium files related to judge transfers and chief justice appointments, except one delayed due to a late consent, have been cleared and may be formally notified within a week.
“All the files, except one where the consent of the judge concerned reached late and led to some administrative issue, have been cleared and are awaiting final notification by the government. They may happen within a week.”
While the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), which is the document guiding the appointment and transfer of judges in constitutional courts, does not explicitly prohibit segregation, the judiciary has consistently opposed the practice.
In 2014, then CJI RM Lodha wrote to then Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, objecting to the government’s unilateral decision to drop former Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium from a list of four recommended judges for the Supreme Court. Subramanium later withdrew his nomination.
More recently, between 2022 and 2023, a bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul criticised the practice, noting that “selective appointments” damaged the “element of workable trust” needed between the judiciary and the executive. The bench warned that such conduct “sends a wrong signal.” However, following Justice Kaul’s retirement in December 2023, the matter has not been listed for further hearing.
In 2014, the National Democratic Alliance government passed the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, setting up an alternative system for the appointment of judges to constitutional courts which also proposed a greater role for the government in the process. But, in 2015, the Supreme Court struck down the law for being unconstitutional because it sought to tinker with the independence of the judiciary.
Since the NJAC verdict, the relationship between the judiciary and the executive has remained fraught, with tensions often surfacing over the MoP, the document that outlines the process of judicial appointments. Despite several rounds of discussions, a new MoP has not been finalised, leading to frequent deadlocks and delays in judicial appointments. The executive has raised concerns about the lack of transparency in the collegium system, while the judiciary has resisted any perceived encroachments on its independence.
