Will Attend Meeting If Collegium Adopts Transparency: Top Court Judge

New Delhi: A senior Supreme Court judge, who boycotted a meeting of the collegium or the group of senior-most judges that decides on judicial appointments on Thursday, has told NDTV that his endeavour is to bring transparency and accountability.

Justice J Chelameswar, one of the five members of the collegium, had also written to Chief Justice TS Thakur saying that he won't be attending its meetings.

"I have chosen not attend collegium meeting as I believe there has to be transparency in the system and my attempt is to make the system transparent and accountable," he told NDTV today.

He said he wanted the top panel to record the minutes of the meeting on its decisions.

"Let the collegium record and give reasons for its decisions on selection or rejection of judge. If the Chief Justice of India gives an assurance on this, I will attend meetings," he said.

Justice Chelameswar's stance had upset the other judges for skipping, say sources, because they believe it undermines India's top court.

Yesterday the Chief Justice addressed to the controversy with brief response saying, "we will sort it out".

The Chief Justice had called the collegium meeting in the middle of a dispute with the government over how to appoint judges to the Supreme Court and High Courts.

Last October, Justice Chelameswar was the only judge to take a different view when a five-member bench struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act that gave politicians a role in appointing judges.

Backing the law passed in parliament, Justice Chelameswar had criticised the system of judges appointing judges. He said there was "no accountability" and there were "cases where the collegium of this Court quickly retraced its steps" having rejected a name recommended by the High Court collegium, giving scope for speculation on what led to the quick change.