Supreme Court’s Research Wing To Assist The Permanent Collegium Secretariat For Appointment Of Judges: Chief Justice Chandrachud

At an event organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association on 11 April, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dr. Justice DY Chandrachud has shared the initiatives already taken and his plans to bring more transparency in the working of the Collegium system. He stated that after he took oath as CJI, he ensured that detailed reasons were given in Collegium resolutions, which are uploaded on the website of the Supreme Court.

He shared that he has now directed the research wing of the Supreme Court, i.e. the Centre for Research and Planning (CRP), to assist the Permanent Secretariat of the Supreme Court Collegium, in order to bring more objectivity in the decision making of the Collegium. The CJI asked the CRP to collect data on top fifty High Court judges in terms of seniority, relating to number of orders passed by them, number of reportable judgments delivered, etc. The CJI said, “This was never done. The idea is to promote a sense of objectivity in the work which the Collegium does. So, the Centre for Research and Planning will now merge, so to speak, its activities with the Permanent Secretariat”.

The CJI further stated that, “The Centre for Research and Planning has some extraordinary talented young people.” The CRP, which was conceptualized by the then CJI TS Thakur, now comprises of two officers posted in the Registry on deputation.

The CJI shared that while one of them is a judicial officer from Punjab & Haryana judiciary, the other one is his former law clerk, who went to Harvard Law School for LLM, and then was teaching at Jindal Global Law School.