"A judiciary that demands transparency from other institutions cannot itself function in secrecy." Evaluate this statement in the context of judicial appointments in India.

The collegium is a judicial creation read into the "consultation" clauses of Articles 124 and 217, not a body the Constitution names. The statement is largely valid: courts that enforce openness on the executive weaken their own authority by appointing judges through an unstated process — though confidentiality retains a limited, legitimate role.

The judiciary's own transparency standard

• The Supreme Court held that the office of the CJI is a "public authority" under the RTI Act, extending disclosure duties to itself [1].
• Courts routinely demand reasoned orders from administrative authorities; natural justice requires reasons whenever a claim is rejected.
• Applying a lower standard to itself invites the charge of institutional double standards.

Where appointments fall short

• No published eligibility matrix or vacancy notification; the method of assessing candidates is undocumented.
• Recent collegium resolutions recommending elevation have carried no recorded reasons, so citizens learn who was appointed but not why [2].
• Opacity weakens scrutiny of merit, seniority and social/regional representation, and fuels perceptions of favouritism.

The case on the other side

• Deliberations involve sensitive personal and professional assessments; full disclosure could deter candidates and damage reputations.
• Judicial primacy in appointments was upheld as basic structure when the Constitution (99th Amendment) and the NJAC Act — which gave the Union Law Minister and two eminent persons a two-member veto — were struck down in 2015 [3]; secrecy, however, was never the ratio of that protection.

Steps already taken

• The Supreme Court now publishes collegium resolutions on its website [4], and disclosure of who is recommended has improved markedly [2].
• The revised Memorandum of Procedure, directed in 2015, remains unfinalised — the key pending reform.

Transparency and independence are complements, not rivals: independence shields the judiciary from the executive, not from the citizen. Finalising the MoP with published criteria, notified vacancies and reasoned resolutions — while protecting genuinely personal material — would align appointments with the openness the Court itself demands, strengthening both judicial legitimacy and public trust.