The importance of the outsider The proposed Judicial Appointments Commission, in which judges will be
marginally outnumbered, which makes the selection system more transparent and help to assess professional merit in better way. The commission will be presided over by Chief Justice of India, two Supreme Court judges. The “non-judges” will be the Prime Minister, the Law Minister, two eminent persons (nominated by the leader of opposition in either house of parliament) and the Justice Secretary (Member Secretary). Thus all organs of state and citizenry will be represented, Checks () and Balances (): Senior bar leaders: The independence of judiciary will be compromised by ―outsider‖ participation, Bar Council of India (Chairman): we are totally against this National Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, we don‘t want any interference from outsider including executive. Supreme Court bar association (President): Loading the commission with more members from the executive would curtail the independence of judiciary. Veteran Judicial suggestion: The collegium system can be improved by making methods of selection more transparent.
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First reason for the escarpment of collegium system is “the Constitution of India functions under Checks and Balances”, Judges of superior courts are given the power to strike down laws of Parliament and State legislatures, which in their view violate constitution, Judiciary also given power to annul amendments to the constitution if they violates the ―Basic Structure‖ (Kesavananda Bharati, 1973), It is completely undemocratic if the selection of such powerful institution is to be left entirely to a body of men and women concededly learned in the law. Other democratic nation has the system of “Participatory appointments” except India, Another reason for the relevancy of outsider is to stabilize the tenure of judges, because several judges like Justice G.B. Pattnaik, Justice J.C. Shah occupied the office for the period of 41 days and as few as 18 days in the case of Justice K.N. Singh. Quote: “Independence is nice, but with accountability, it is better”.