• There is no proposal at present to reintroduce a bill on National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.

• The NJAC Act, which sought to overturn the collegium system of appointing Supreme Court and High Court judges, was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015.

• Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar, in his maiden speech in the Upper House, had mentioned about the scrapping the NJAC law, terming it as an instance of severe compromise of parliamentary sovereignty.

• Asserting that the NJAC Bill had unprecedented support of Parliament and members unanimously voted in its favour, Dhankhar said there is no parallel to such a development in democratic history where a duly legitimised constitutional prescription has been judicially undone.

National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014

• Judges to the Supreme Court of India and High Courts of states are appointed under Articles 124 and 217 respectively. Additional Judges and acting judges for High Courts are appointed under Articles 224 and 224A. The transfer of High Court judges and Chief Justices, of one High Court to another, is made under Article 222.

• Articles 124 and 217 were amended, and Articles 124A, 124B and 124C were inserted in the Constitution, through the Constitution (99th Amendment) Act.

• The amendment received the assent of the President on December 12, 2014.

• The NJAC Bill and an accompanying Constitution amendment were passed by Parliament with near unanimity.

• The Parliament enacted the NJAC Act, which also received the assent of the President on December 12, 2014.

• On April 13, 2015, the government notified the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014 and the Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, 2014 for bringing in a change in the system for appointment of judges in Supreme Court and High Courts.

• The NJAC was to be chaired by the Chief Justice of India. The NJAC membership included two senior most judges of the Supreme Court, the Union Minister of Law and Justice, two eminent persons to be nominated by a committee of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India, and the Leader of the Opposition in the House of the People, or if there is no Leader of the Opposition, then the Leader of the single largest Opposition Party in the House of the People.

• In October 2015, the Supreme Court rejected the NJAC Act and the Constitutional Amendment as unconstitutional and void. 

• It said the new scheme damages the basic feature of the Constitution under which primacy in appointment of judges has to be with the judiciary. 

• It held that the collegium system, as it existed before the NJAC, would again become operative.

What is the collegium system?

• The collegium system is a forum including the Chief Justice of India and four senior-most judges of the SC, which recommends appointments and transfers of judges. 

• Judges of the higher judiciary are appointed only through the collegium system, and the government has a role only after names have been decided by the collegium.

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