Critically evaluate whether the Collegium system remains the most transparent mechanism for judicial appointments in India post-NJAC judgment.

The Supreme Court struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission in 2015, holding that executive participation in selecting judges violated judicial independence — a basic feature of the Constitution [1]. The judge-led Collegium was thereby restored as the operative mechanism under Articles 217 and 224, but its claim to transparency rests more on insulation from the executive than on openness of process.

Strengths that sustain the Collegium

• Institutional insulation: peer assessment by senior judges shields selection from political patronage, the very risk the NJAC verdict identified [1].
• Disclosure of recommendations: Collegium resolutions naming recommended judicial officers are now published before the Centre notifies them, as in the September 2026 elevations to the Delhi, Jharkhand, Karnataka and J&K–Ladakh High Courts.
• Broadening the bench: elevation of district-judiciary officers, with women among recent appointees, widens the recruitment base beyond the Bar.

Transparency and outcome deficits

• No published criteria: eligibility norms, the method of selection and the manner of evaluating merit remain undisclosed; a parliamentary panel urged that these, and the number of vacancies, be made public while allowing the final shortlist to stay confidential [2].
• Unreasoned rejections: a candidate dropped by the Collegium or the government is told nothing, which the Committee held to be against natural justice [2].
• Procedural drift on both sides: the Memorandum of Procedure requires a High Court to initiate appointments six months before a vacancy, a norm rarely observed, while no deadline binds the Centre after a recommendation — the average appointment took five to seven months in 2018–19 [3].
• Vacancy burden: 406 of 1,098 High Court posts lay vacant (about 37%, November 2021) and over four crore cases remain pending, showing that opacity coexists with delay [3].

Thus the Collegium is the most independent mechanism available today, but independence has not translated into transparency. Codifying MoP timelines for all higher courts, publishing selection criteria and recording reasons for rejection [2] would let it discharge the constitutional promise of an independent and accountable judiciary that the 2015 verdict sought to protect.