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The Supreme Court collegium in India, which is the determining authority for the appointment of judges to the higher judiciary, has often been derided for its secretive functioning and opaque practices. This paper provides an empirical assessment of the collegium’s commitment to transparency through an examination of its published resolutions. A study of all the published resolutions, over a period of more than three years, shows that the practice of information disclosure by the collegium cannot be attributed with the value of transparency. The collegium has systematically failed to disclose critical information essential to an enhanced understanding of its functioning. An overwhelming majority of its decisions are not reasoned. The resolutions fail to provide a meaningful understanding of the considerations, based on which candidates are selected or rejected. While the step taken to publish the resolutions was in the right direction, the collegium has reneged on its declared objective of promoting transparency
Rangin Pallav Tripathy (Fri,) studied this question.