"The collegium system was designed to protect judicial independence but has come to symbolise institutional opacity." Critically examine, tracing its evolution through the three Judges Cases.

The collegium is a judicial construct — read into the word "consultation" in Articles 124 and 217 — not a body named in the Constitution or created by statute. Its insulation of appointments from executive control is genuine; its own procedures, however, remain largely unpublished, making the criticism of opacity partly valid.

Evolution through the three Judges Cases

• First Judges Case (S.P. Gupta v. Union of India, 1981): held "consultation" does not mean concurrence; the CJI's opinion was not binding, giving the executive primacy [1].
• Second Judges Case (SC Advocates-on-Record Assn. v. Union of India, 1993): overruled this, vesting primacy in the collective opinion of the CJI and senior judges — the birth of the collegium [2].
• Third Judges Case (Special Reference No. 1 of 1998, Art. 143): fixed the present five-member collegium (CJI + 4 senior-most judges; CJI + 2 for High Courts) and required opinions in writing [3].
• 2014–15: the 99th Constitutional Amendment and NJAC Act [4] were struck down as violating the basic structure, judicial primacy being treated as intrinsic to independence.

Where the design succeeded

• Ended executive leverage over elevations and transfers — a lesson drawn from the Emergency-era supersession of judges.
• Preserved separation of powers, the ground on which NJAC's executive-inclusive composition fell.

Where opacity persists

• No published eligibility criteria, vacancy notification, or assessment methodology.
• Resolutions often issued without recorded reasons, so rejections stay unexplained — a standard the Court itself demands of the executive.
• The revised Memorandum of Procedure, meant to codify transparency after 2015, was never finalised and notified [5]. A sitting Supreme Court judge recently urged that reasons be recorded for every recommendation.

Independence and accountability are complements, not rivals. Notifying the revised MoP, publishing objective criteria and reasoned resolutions, and creating a permanent secretariat would let the collegium retain judicial primacy while meeting the constitutional promise of transparent, merit-based public appointments.