Speaking at the India Today Conclave, he said, “If there was any pressure from the government Supreme CourtWould you have expected the SC to write a judgment on the selection of the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioner (where the SC formed a panel including the CJI for their selection).
CJI defends making IB’s inputs public, says no source mentioned
Elaborating on the judge-selection-judge system, the CJI said that the Collegium takes a call only after considering the names of the candidates. Department of Justice The IB’s report on each candidate is accompanied by its comments.
“There has been a demand for more transparency. When we appoint judges to the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice and the four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court look at merit and professional competence. In the Collegium, we scrutinize the decisions of the people who come in the field of view. We also take into account their seniority. We also consider the wider sense of inclusion in terms of gender, marginalized communities, SC/ST communities apart from representatives of minority communities. But there is merit in the vortex of ideas. We try to give representation to different states, classes and communities.
on law minister kiran rijijuObjection to making the resolution of the collegium public Raw And the IB input on the recommendation of an openly gay candidate for appointment as a judge of the Delhi High Court, the CJI said, “The Law Minister has a perception and I, as CJI, have a perception. What’s the difference in perception? Is evil? We have to deal with differences of perception within the judiciary. I dare say there are differences of perception within the government, but we deal with it with strong constitutional statesmanship.
“I don’t want to associate this issue with the law minister because of his perception,” he said. The candidate in question has been open about his sexual orientation. IB is open about this. It’s not making IB open source to put anyone’s life at risk. We held that a person’s sexual orientation has nothing to do with a candidate’s constitutional eligibility to hold the constitutional office of a High Court Judge.
On speculation about government pressure on the judiciary’s decision-making process, the CJI said, “I have been a constitutional court judge for 23 years…the longest I have been. Nobody asked me to decide a case in a particular way.” I also don’t tell a colleague how to decide a matter before him. There is no question of pressure from the executive or political branch on how to decide a matter. But, yes, There is a lot of intellectual pressure on how to do complete justice.