Senior advocate Fali Nariman, who spearheaded the arguments against the National Judicial Appointments Commission, on Tuesday faulted the collegium system for selecting former Chief Justice of Karnata
Senior advocate Fali Nariman, who spearheaded the arguments against the National Judicial Appointments Commission, on Tuesday faulted the collegium system for selecting former Chief Justice of Karnataka high court P.D. Dinakaran as a judge of the Supreme Court.
Making his submissions before a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice Khehar, the senior counsel regretted that the then Chief Justice of India and other collegium judges even refused to meet a delegation of lawyers from the Madras high court.
Pointing out that the collegium has to be receptive to ideas and suggestions, Mr Nariman said the then CJI who was kind enough to meet him refused to meet other members of the delegation. If responsible and eminent members of the bar wants to meet the collegium judges to pass on some information and materials, they can’t say no.
Mr Nariman said he was so much concerned about the developments that he openly declared that he will not appear before the then CJI or other members of the collegium if Justice Dinakaran was elevated.
This incident exposes the lack of receptivity of the collegium, he added and said these things should not be repeated.
He suggested that the collegium must consult a body consisting of distinguished jurists, leading lawyers, judges outside the collegiums, presidents of the Bar and president of the Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association (SCORA).
He said guidelines with respect to the consultation, minimum criteria, acceptance of nominations, mechanism of short-listing may be published and put in the public domain on the web-site. Rules for selection and guidelines should ensure transparency.
