Judges' Appointments In Past 12 Years Witnessed Unexplained Executive Interference : Muralidhar

Sharply questioning the efficacy of the Collegium system in ensuring independence in judicial appointments, Senior Advocate and former High Court Chief Justice, Dr S Muralidhar, said that the last twelve years have witnessed "unexplained interference by the executive" in the selection of judges.

He also criticised the collegium system for its lack of transparency and vagueness. 

"For appointments of judges to the High Courts, the procedure is more elaborate, involving the judiciary and the executive. Despite switching over in 1993 to a collegium system that gives primacy to the view of the CJI in the matter of appointments both to the Supreme Court and the High Courts, there is a general agreement now that this has not served the objective of getting the best possible candidates. The appointment process has in the past twelve years witnessed unexplained interference by the executive. Compounding this is the vagueness as to the criteria, a lack of transparency and an overall inefficiency."

Muralidhar was speaking at the 28th DS Borker Memorial Lecture on the Vision of India 2047. Highlighting the lack of efficiency in the appointment system, he said that the Collegium system is unable to find a replacement on time though the retirement dates of judges are publicly known in advance. He remarked that merely increasing the sanctioned strength of judges without making the appointment process efficient will make the vacancy crisis worse for the judiciary.

In the same vein, the former judge also spoke on the delays in disposal of cases and the mounting arrears. He stated that statistics suggest that judges are doing their possible best in tackling the pendency of cases, but there is a myth which needs to be broken.  

"This is a myth and requires to be broken. The statistics tell us that judges are doing their best possible with CCRs being 90% and over. Yes, there are judges who are shirkers but then there are those among them who are ant-like and do the heavy lifting of the overall court caseload. It would be fair to state that all levels of courts in our country, there are around 20 to 30% of the serving judges who are punctual, punctilious, conscientious, hard-working, efficient in court and case management. We should be worried about the remaining that aren't."

Can't blame judges alone for arrears

He added that the problem should also be looked at from the perspective of who is actually contributing to the pending arrears. 

For instance, he pointed out that every month around 29 lakh cases are instituted and every month, judges at district level dispose of 24 lakh cases. Over 10 lakh cases are instituted annually in our High Courts and an almost equal number is disposed of, meaning the overall pendency remains the same. Similarly is the Supreme Court, which has a current pendency of 93,000 cases. In 2025, 62.000 cases were instituted, and nearly 57,000 were disposed of.

Muralidhar said that the State should be equally blamed for increasing the workload by taking "arbitrary decisions" such as criminalising normal activities like peaceful protest in a democracy. 

"First and foremost, the State by which I mean the governments both at the States and the centre. By their actions of taking arbitrary decisions, or not deciding at all, or by unthinkingly criminalising normal activities in a democracy like peaceful protests and unnecessary arrests, governments drive people to courts. This explains why despite the delays, costs, and uncertainties in the court system, the filings have grown over the years. "

Adding to this, he stated that the State, as a matter of policy, wants to appeal any and every decision to which it is a party and has lost the matter.

"The other problem is that the State's capacity to litigate can outmatch even the richest conglomerate. If the state loses a case, at any level, it will appeal, and keep doing that till the Supreme Court. It could be an increment of 100 Rs given to a mali in a government department or a pension of 300 Rs to a widow of the deceased government servant. Everything has to be appealed. And if the private individual succeeds there is no guarantee that the government will accept and comply with the court order."

Muralidhar further said that the lawyers engaged by the government are also to be blamed to some extent because of repeated adjournments and poor instructions from the government, which leads to the overall delay in the case.

"Many of these appointments are distributed as largesse with no real relevance to the expertise required. All this leads to numerous adjournments on account of non-availability of the counsel be it a prosecutor or a government pleader or a law officer. If they do appear, they are instructed poorly or not at all. Reply affidavits are seldom filed in time; records are never produced within the time stipulated. Judges at all levels, are deeply frustrated by this intransigence but can do little about it since very often no real progress can be made in a case without the participation of the government counsel. As a result, most judges are forced to accommodate the request by the government's counsel for an adjournment. "

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