Why is it in news?

• the Supreme Court Collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India has resolved to go public with all its recommendations to the government on judicial appointments, transfers, and elevations to the High Courts and the Supreme Court.
• the Supreme Court began uploading on its website the decisions of its Collegium on appointments and transfers in the higher judiciary.
• It is a landmark move aimed at ensuring transparency in the appointment of judges
• The timing is significant the process is at the center of a row with the government over the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP)

Significance

• The Collegium will further “indicate” the reasons for which it has decided to recommend or reject names for appointment, transfer or elevation to the High Courts and the Supreme Court. 
• As a first step, the Supreme Court uploaded on its website the Collegium’s decision on the appointment of three judges to the Kerala High Court and six judges to the Madras High Court.

Story of  Collegium system thus far

• This step comes after the controversy over the transfer and subsequent resignation of Justice Jayant Patel of Karnataka High Court.
• It had led to demands for more transparency in the working of the Collegium system
• Collegium is the body responsible for appointments and transfers in higher judiciary.

FIRST JUDGES CASE

• It said the “primacy” of the CJI’s recommendation to the President can be refused for “cogent reasons”.

SECOND JUDGES CASE

• The Collegium system had come  into existence following the 1993 decision of a nine-judge Constitution Bench in the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association vs the Union of India, more popularly known as the Second Judges Case.
• This ruling had overturned the 1982 judgment in S P Gupta vs the Union of India — the First Judges Case
•  In other words, the executive retained its decisive role.
• The Second Judges Case ensured that primacy was accorded to the CJI under the Collegium system.
• But it did not end the secrecy surrounding the deliberations of the Collegium

THIRD JUDGES CASE

• The Third Judges Case was an opinion, not a ruling, by the Supreme Court in 1998 on a question referred to it by the then President, K R Narayanan.
• It said that the CJI’s opinion had to be formed after consulting the Collegium and that the opinion of all members should be in writing.
• This was to put a check on any bias or arbitrariness. But critics of the Collegium system have pointed out that this was not adhered to very strictly.
• This led to repeated run-ins with the executive.

NJAC

• The government brought in the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act in 2014
• But it was struck down a year later by the Supreme Court as “unconstitutional”.
• Subsequently, the Supreme Court allowed the government to “finalize the existing Memorandum of Procedure by supplementing it in consultation with the Chief Justice of India”.
• Since then the plans to revise the MoP have been in a logjam ever since with the Collegium objecting to some of the recommendations in the draft drawn up by the government.

Article 217

• Every Judge of a High Court shall be appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal after consultation with the Chief Justice of India, the Governor of the State, and, in the case of appointment of a Judge other than the chief Justice, the chief Justice of the High court, and shall hold office, in the case of an additional or acting Judge, as provided in Article 224, and in any other case, until he attains the age of sixty-two year.