Referring to media reports criticising the collegium system, the Chief Justice of India R M Lodha on Monday said, “Everyone is out to condemn the collegium system terming it as a failure. Such campaigns should not shake the confidence of people in the judiciary by defaming it.”
The CJI, heading a three-judge Bench hearing a writ petition questioning the reported elevation of Karnataka High Court judge K.L. Manjunath as the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court said, “No system is perfect, no one is perfect, the society is not perfect and we are all from the society. I am from the first batch of judges selected via the collegium and Justice Rohinton Nariman is the last one to be selected. At present, all the judges of the Supreme Court and high courts are the products of the collegium system. If the collegium system has failed, then the products, too, have failed and we as the product of the system have failed. Don’t shake the confidence of the public in the judiciary,” the CJI said.
