Justice Bhuyan Challenges Collegium Opacity

The current Collegium system operates behind a veil of confidentiality, with the criteria for rejections or deferrals remaining largely opaque. Justice Bhuyan noted a regression in these practices, pointing out that recent resolutions recommending appointments lack the reasoning that characterized earlier statements. He urged the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy’s JALDI initiative to incorporate the Collegium’s internal processes into future iterations of their transparency index, asserting that the judiciary’s own constitutive mechanisms require the same level of public scrutiny applied to its rulings.

Drawing on philosophical precedents from Plato to Jeremy Bentham, the judge emphasized that publicity is a precondition for governance rather than an incidental virtue. He highlighted the case of Senior Advocate Saurabh Kirpal, whose appointment remains stalled years after being recommended, as evidence of the system’s disconnect from public accountability. While acknowledging the progress made in court reporting, he insisted that systemic openness must extend beyond published judgments to the very selection of those who deliver them.