CAMPAIGN FOR JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND REFORMS

6/6 basement, Jangpura B, Delhi – 110014

judiciareforms@gmail.com, judicialreforms.org

Patrons: Justice P.B. Sawant, Justice H Suresh, Shri Shanti Bhushan, Prof B.B. Pande, Dr. Bhasker Rao, Ms. Arundhati Roy, Shri Pradip Prabhu, Prof. Babu Mathew, Dr. Baba Adhav, Ms. Kamini Jaiswal, Shri Mihir Desai, Shri Manoj Mitta

Executive Committee: Prashant Bhushan, Nikhil Dey, Cheryl Dsouza, Venkatesh Sundaram, Indu Prakash Singh, Devvrat, Siddharth Sharma, Dipa Sinha, Annie Raja, Rohit Kumar Singh, Pranav Sachdeva,Alok Prasanna Kumar, Ramesh Nathan, Vipul Mudgal, Indira Unninayar, Madhuresh Kumar, Vijayan MJ, Harish Narasappa, Koninika Ray, Anjali Bharadwaj

Dated:06.10.2017

STATEMENT

The Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR), welcomes the Resolution of the Supreme Court Collegium dated 03.10.2017, regarding “Transparency in Collegium system”. The resolution mandates uploading of Collegium’s resolutions on the Supreme Court’s websites. CJAR is pleased to note the positive approach of the Collegium in placing the resolutions with reasons for elevation and transfers of judges to and between the High Courts, and appointment of judges to the Supreme Court. It has been our consistent stand that the Collegium’s functioning needs to become more transparent and accountable to the public at large. This is a first but necessary step towards both objectives and will go some distance in restoring the public’s confidence in the system, cutting at the roots of nepotistic and arbitrary judicial appointments. While the collegium system was created to ensure independence of the judiciary under the Constitution, absence of transparency and accountability can defeat this purpose. For a robust and transparent appointment system, there is a need to go beyond this by putting out the names of proposed appointees on the Supreme Court website, to allow an opportunity for the people to provide relevant information on the proposed appointees. This will ensure appointment of only those candidates that are meritorious and of impeccable integrity. CJAR applauds this first step in building in a system of accountability and transparency in appointments to the higher Judiciary.