The story so far: The Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana’s tenure is drawing to an end in a few days. The Ramana Collegium has been particularly successful. Meeting frequently and working quickly, they took the perennial problem of judicial vacancies by its horns and turned it around. The collegium, as a united front, was able to recommend numerous judicial appointments and scripted history by getting nine Supreme Court judges appointed in one go. Of the nine, Justice B.V. Nagarathna, is in line to be the first woman CJI in 2027.
What exactly is the collegium system?
The collegium system was born out of years of friction between the judiciary and the executive. The hostility was further accentuated by instances of court-packing (the practice of changing the composition of judges in a court), mass transfer of high court judges and two supersessions to the office of the CJI in the 1970s.
