Appointment of judges to the Supreme Court

NEWS: Centre clears the appointment of two judges to the Supreme Court 

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/centre-clears-the-appointment-of-two-judges-to-the-supreme-court/article66867770.ece#:~:text=The%20government’s%20clearance%20of%20their,the%20quickest%20in%20recent%20history&text=Chief%20Justice%20of%20India%20D.Y.,from%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20Bar.

• The two new apex court judges are Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and K.V. Viswanathan, who is a direct appointment from the Supreme Court Bar.
• Collegium system:
  • Judges of the High Courts and the Supreme Court are appointed by the provisions mentioned in Articles 124 and 217 of the Constitution of India. 
• Articles 124 and 217 state that the President shall appoint judges to the Supreme Court and high courts after consultation with the Chief Justice of India and other judges.
• Composition:
  • The Supreme Court Collegium consists of the CJI and four senior-most judges of the apex court. 
  • High Court Collegium consists of the Chief Justice of the High Court and two senior-most judges of that particular court.
• Recommendations: 
  • Crucially, recommendations made by the Collegium are binding: while the government can flag concerns and ask the Collegium to reconsider, if the Collegium chooses to reiterate its recommendations, they become binding.
• Issues with the current collegium system
  • The collegium system does not provide any guidelines or criteria for the appointment of the Supreme Court judges and it increases the ambit of favouritism. 
  • In the collegium system, there are no criteria for testing the candidate or for doing a background check to establish the credibility of the candidate. 
  • The absence of an administrative body is also a reason for worry because it means that the members of the collegium system are not answerable for the selection of any of the judges.
• Pendency of cases in India
  • Over 4.7 crore cases are pending in courts across different levels of the judiciary. 
  • Of them, 87.4% are pending in subordinate courts, 12.4% in High Courts, while nearly 1,82,000 cases have been pending for over 30 years. 
  • Example of Bombay HC:
  • According to the National Judicial Data Grid ( NJDG), 
  • there are 5.88 lakh cases pending before the Bombay High Court 
  • of which 1.14 lakh fresh cases were filed in the last one year 
  • more than 16,000 criminal cases are pending for more than 10 years.
  • Issue of shortage of Judges:
  • The major reason behind this situation is the overall shortage of judges in the high courts in India.
• The situation is grim in subordinate courts where along with the shortage, lack of basic infrastructure is a big concern.

Practice Questions for Prelims

Consider the following Statements regarding Indian Judiciary :
1. Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and K.V. Viswanathan, are recently appointed as judge in
supreme court.
2. K.V. Viswanathan, is first direct appointment from the Supreme Court Bar since
independence.
3. “forum shopping” is a practice when litigants or lawyers attempt to deliberately move their
case to a particular judge or Court where they think the judgment could be more favourable.
4. Under article 136 forum shopping is allowed constitutionally.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct :
a) 1 and 2 only
b) 1 and 3 only
c) 1, 3 and 4only
d) 1, 2 3 and 4

Ans. b)

Mains Practice Question

The efficiency of the collegium system has been challenged time to time in terms of its independence and transparency of judicial appointments. Critically examine.

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