Retired Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton F Nariman on Sunday said that good and independent judges are often not rewarded by the Collegium system and are pushed out of the system and that is why it failed to elevate courageous judges like Justice Akil Kureshi to the Supreme Court.While Collegium system of appointing judges to the High Courts and the Supreme Court is a good one, it was not doing its best, Justice Nariman added.“The system is not doing the best it can. That is why the system failed to bring in people like Justice Kureshi. Apparently, when you are too good and if you are independent, you are immediately pushed out of the system,” Justice Nariman said.He was speaking at an event in Chennai where Justice Kureshi was conferred with the ‘SGS Award for Ethics in the Legal Profession.’The event was organised by Senior Counsel Sriram Panchu and others in the memory of celebrated lawyer and former Tamil Nadu Advocate General S Govind Swaminadhan.Panchu in his speech said that by not elevating Justice Kureshi to the Supreme Court, the top court lost an asset.Justice Nariman echoed the Senior Advocate’s views and said that such breaches occurred because the current Collegium system succumbed to pressures.“To begin at the beginning, the founders of the Constitution decided to go ahead with the system that the British followed. The system was working perfectly until the Kesavananda Bharati judgment. That was the first blow that struck the independence of the judiciary in India,” Justice Nariman said.The former Supreme Court judge went on to say that the judiciary’s independence was struck twice subsequently, once when the then Prime Minister Indira declared the national emergency, and finally, more recently, in October 2023, when the Union “government notified the transfer of 16 judges, who were courageous like Justice Kureshi.”“Again, by a majority, the Supreme Court held that everything was in the government’s hands,” Justice Nariman said.
TAGS: Justice Rohinton Nariman Collegium system Justice Akil Kureshi Supreme Court judiciary independence
