New Delhi: The Supreme Court has observed that the two-decade-old collegium system of appointing judges to higher judiciary had enough checks to weed out the corrupt.
The SC bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu said that ‘it was a chronic habit with some of the lawyers in every high court to file anonymous complaints repeatedly against a judge'.
The apex court's observation came while hearing a plea challenging the elevation of a district judge as a judge of the High Court. The petitioner had questioned the integrity of the judge to which the bench, while dismissing the plea, said the ‘collegium system had enough checks to weed out corrupt'.
These advocates who filed the complaint are well aware that a judge remains defenceless against such complaints and thus they continue throwing bricks at the judges in the cloak of anonymity, it said.
"Life of judges have become miserable," said the CJI.
"The High Court collegium first scrutinizes a person's integrity before recommending appointment as a Judge of the High Court. It then gets placed before the Supreme Court collegium which seeks a through inquiry into the recommended person's integrity from the Intelligence Bureau,” said the bench.
"After the SC collegium recommends the name for appointment as a Judge of the HC, the law ministry seeks a separate report from the IB. If the law ministry also misses the blemishes in the person, then he is really lucky to get appointed as a judge of HC," the bench added.
The Central government had earlier this year notified the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), replacing the collegium system.
