NEWS: Justice U U Lalit To Become Part of Supreme Court Collegium

By Legal Wires 7 Minutes Read

The Supreme Court collegium will have Justice U.U Lalit as its new and fifth member, with Justice R Banumathi superannuating as a judge of the top court.

Collegium System is a system under which appointments and elevations of judges and lawyers to the Supreme Court and the High Courts, and also transfer of judges to High Courts and the Apex court are decided by a forum of the Chief Justice of India and 4 senior most judges of the Supreme Court.^[1]

The Chief Justice of India S A Bobde, Justice N V Ramana, Justice Arun Mishra and Justice R F Nariman are already part of the collegium in the present time.

The Constitution of India has embodied the concept of Independence of Judiciary. However, the appointment of judges in the High Court and the Supreme Court has been left to the President, who works on the aid and advice of the council of ministers. The President shall act in accordance with such advice.^[2] However after the prolonged stint of which started with First Judges Case and ended with NJAC case of 2015, it has been established that the recommendation of the collegium system shall be binding upon the Council of Ministers.

Justice Lalit, who was directly made a judge of the top court from the Bar on August 13, 2014, will remain part of the collegium till he demits office as the CJI on November 8, 2022.

Justice Lalit would succeed Justice Ramana as the CJI in 2022 and would have a term of around two months as the head of the Indian Judicial System.

Justice Bhanumathi, whose last working day was on July 17, was the second-ever woman to be part of the collegium after Justice Ruma Pal in the last 14 years.

With the retirement of Justice Banumathi, Justice Lalit becomes number five in the seniority of top court judges and would automatically become part of the collegium assigned with the task of selecting and recommending names of judges in the Supreme Court.

The collegium which recommends names of persons for appointment of judges in high courts comprises three senior-most top court judges as its members.

Justice Lalit had always been a leading lawyer of the country. He was enrolled as an Advocate in June 1983 and practised in the High Court of Bombay till December, 1985.

During his practice Justice Lalit was designated as senior advocate by the Supreme Court in April, 2004. The top court had appointed him as the Special Public Prosecutor for the CBI to conduct trial in all 2G matters.

What is the Collegium System?^[3] The Collegium of judges is the Supreme Court’s invention. It is a system under which judges are appointed by an institution comprising judges.

What the Constitution says? The Constitution says that judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts are appointed by the President and speaks of a process of consultation. The procedure of appointment of judges to the SC and HCs is provided under Article 124 and Article 217 respectively.

• These Articles state that judges of the Supreme Court shall be appointed by the President in consultation with the Chief Justice of India (CJI) and other judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts as the President of India may deem necessary.
• The judges of the High Courts are appointed by the President in consultation with the CJI, the Governor of the concerned state, and the Chief Justice of the High Court.

How does the Collegium System Works?^[4]

• The Collegium sends the recommendations of the names of lawyers or judges to the Central Government. Similarly, the Central Government also sends some of its proposed names to the Collegium. The Central Government does the fact checking and investigate the names and resends the file to the Collegium.
• Collegium considers the names or suggestions made by the Central Government and resends the file to the government for final approval. If the Collegium resends the same name again then the government has to give its assent to the names. But the time limit is not fixed. This is the reason that appointment of judges takes a long time.

[1] Source Link
[2] Source Link
[3] Source Link
[4] The Hindu (Source Link)

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