Discuss why the 'distinguished jurist' route for appointment to the Supreme Court under Article 124(3) has remained unutilised despite being part of the original constitutional scheme. Suggest reforms.

Article 124(3) offers three routes to a Supreme Court judgeship — five years as a High Court judge, ten years as a High Court advocate, or being a "distinguished jurist" in the President's opinion [1]. Over 76 years, the third route has never once been used, making a deliberate constitutional choice a dead letter.

The original intent

• Moved by H.V. Kamath on 24 May 1949, the clause aimed to open the field beyond judges and advocates to persons of "outstanding legal and juristic learning" [2].
• Ambedkar did not oppose it, questioning only whether "eminent" was apter than "distinguished" — confirming settled agreement on the principle [2].

Why it stayed unused

• Enabling, not mandatory: the provision is permissive and rests on the President's "opinion", creating no duty to consider jurists [1].
• No definition or criteria: unlike the 5-year and 10-year thresholds, the Constitution prescribes no benchmark for a "distinguished jurist", breeding ambiguity [1].
• Procedural vacuum: the Memorandum of Procedure, built around the collegium and the serving judge/advocate pipeline, provides no channel to identify or nominate academics [4].
• Institutional inertia: neither the government nor the collegium has seriously explored the route, as Justice Ujjal Bhuyan noted at NLU Delhi in 2026, calling the exclusion of legal academia regrettable [3].

Reforms

• Amend the MoP to lay down transparent, objective indicators of juristic distinction — scholarship, law reform work, amicus contribution [4].
• Institute a search-cum-selection mechanism drawing nominations from National Law Universities and the Bar, with reasons recorded.
• Adopt the workable precedent of the Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968, where a "distinguished jurist" is already identified for the removal inquiry committee [5].
• Consider periodic review of at least one vacancy against the jurist route.

Operationalising Article 124(3)(c) would honour the framers' design and enrich adjudication with scholarly perspective. A defined, transparent pathway — rather than constitutional amendment — is sufficient, aligning judicial appointments with the constitutional values of diversity, merit and institutional openness.