Dear Supreme Court, Indians mostly clueless about what goes behind the scene in judiciary

CJI SA Bobde has persisted with the opaque system that his predecessor Justice Ranjan Gogoi-led collegium of Supreme Court had initiated. ndia’s Supreme Court has regressed on its own transparency obligations of late, but when it comes to political parties, it wants the highest standard. On 13 February, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court issued six directions to India’s political parties, chief among which was to disclose reasons for fielding candidates with pending criminal cases in elections. There is no doubt this judgment, which also asks political parties to make public the reasons why they couldn’t find “other individuals without criminal antecedents” could go a long way in cleansing India’s electoral politics. But while the Supreme Court has occasionally gone out of its way to show the mirror to others, it has fallen short of introducing transparency in its own functioning? Why doesn’t the public have the right to know how our judges are appointed? Will we ever know how a relative of a sitting or retired judge is found more qualified – despite failing to fulfil the relevant criteria? Shouldn’t the public be told why a judge is first denied chief justiceship of a high court on clearly specious grounds but is later given the job? Why is there a mystery over how the system of making recommendations for appointments was watered down?

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Dear Supreme Court, Indians mostly clueless about what goes behind the scene in judiciary

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