Collegium has obvious flaws but given the politics of the day, it is the best system: Justice Rohinton Nariman

Retired Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton Nariman recently opined that the Collegium system for appointing judges to the Supreme Court and High Courts has its flaws but is best suited for the present times.."That system has its obvious flaws; judges do not agree easily on things. But given the politics of the day, I think it is perhaps the best system in the circumstances," he said.Justice Nariman was speaking at the Committee Room of the United Kingdom's House of Lords, on the topic 'Origins and Development of Parliament'.Pertinently, Justice Nariman urged the Prime Minister to form a committee to tackle excessive government litigation. To a question on whether enough was being done to speed up the justice system in India, he said,"The obvious thing is to cut down arrears by government not litigating. Government, it is a massive litigant. Just get rid of them, it is so simple for government to get rid of cases. Government itself must pay down its own litigative abilities. The Prime Minister must sit down, appoint a committee and have that community and deliberate as to which way we can completely declog the courts of this country."He lamented that not enough was being done in this regard, and advocated the appointment of ad-hoc judges to clear the huge backlog of pending cases."A lot more could be done. It is a very complex problem, and there are about 20 things that need to be done simultaneously and there has to be a consensus between government, between the Chief Justice of the country and all those involved. It is a difficult question but it requires solution. I have my own solution but then I am out! The first solution is that you have ad-hoc judges appointed in every court"..In his responses during the question and answer session following his speech, the retired apex court judge opined that unlike in the United Kingdom, bicameralism actually has teeth in India since the Rajya Sabha can negate bills passed by the Lok Sabha.In the context of the definition of secularism in India, he said that the concept of 'fraternity' is much more powerful than secularism. "We have a concept in our [Constitution's] Preamble, which is fraternity. And fraternity is a much more powerful concept than secularism, because secularism is only about if the State acts wrongly, but fraternity is something positive. That you must positively attempt to regard every citizen of India as your brother, and that is there in our fundamental duties chapter as well.".Recently, former Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit had said that the present system is the best one available, and appointment processes under it are not a "whimsical exercise" to promote nepotism.Former CJI SA Bobde had also stressed that the primacy of judicial appointments must rest with the Collegium and not the executive.Retired Supreme Court judge, Justice MR Shah, had opined that the system was working well.Similarly, Justice Ajay Rastogi stated that the Collegium is good but its functioning could be more transparent..Watch Justice Nariman's speech and subsequent discussion below.