Fali Nariman faces his own criticism of collegium system

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday acknowledged for the first time that the collegium system of judges appointing judges, which Parliament has replaced with National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), has not worked well. “The (collegium) system is good, but the implementation has gone wrong," a five-member SC bench said.

Senior advocate Fali S Nariman, lead lawyer for petitioners questioning the constitutional validity of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), was on Tuesday made to face his own bitter criticism of the Supreme Court-drafted collegium system for appointment of judges.

Former solicitor general T R Andhyarujina and additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta cited excerpts from Nariman's autobiography 'Before Memory Fades' to drive home the point that not only had Parliament and 20 states ratified the NJAC to replace the collegium system but Nariman, the lead opponent of NJAC, too was against the collegium system.

Nariman was the counsel who argued for petitioner `Supreme Court Advocates on Record' in the 1990s, leading to formulation of the collegium system by a nine-judge constitution bench. Prior to the collegium system, the executive appointed judges in consultation with the CJI.

In his book, Nariman had devoted an entire chapter to express disappointment at the working of the collegium system. He wrote, “I would suggest that the closed-circuit network of five judges should be disbanded."

Nariman was unperturbed by the opponents' remarks. He told TOI he had made his views clear to the SC during initial arguments against the NJAC in which the primacy of judiciary in appointment of judges has been erased. He said he still felt the collegium system had not worked well. But that did not mean that the present form of NJAC was a good substitute, he said.