Collegium system ensures independent judiciary:CJI

NEW DELHI: The process of judicial appointments has to be completely transparent to foster greater confidence of citizens in the work of the judiciary, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud said on Saturday, pointing out that the collegium system follows a set of well-defined parameters to select judges.

"No system is perfect, but this is the best we have developed. It (collegium) was devised for the simple reason that independence of judiciary is a cardinal value and the judiciary needs to be insulated from outside influences for it to be truly independent," the CJI said, highlighting that merit is the prime consideration, followed by seniority and the need to have broad representation from all regions and high courts, while considering inclusion of gender, marginalised communities and minorities.

"First, we look at merit to assess the professional competence of a judge," the CJI said, referring to the practice followed where the collegium reads the judgments rendered by the candidate judge to be elevated to the Supreme Court. Also, the top court judges deal with judgments of high courts on a daily basis, which helps form an opinion about merit of a particular judge.