A petition has been filed before the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) and the Central government to finalise the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP), which governs the appointment of judges to the High Courts and the Supreme Court.

The plea, filed by NGO Loka Prahari, seeks directions to ensure that appointments to constitutional courts are based on the unanimous recommendations of the Collegium, taking into account the principles laid down by the Supreme Court.

It has also sought to bring Collegium decisions within the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act to ensure greater transparency in judicial appointments.

The matter came up for hearing on Monday before a bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe. However, Justice Narasimha recused himself from hearing the case, stating that he had appeared as an Additional Solicitor General in a similar matter concerning the MoP.

The Memorandum of Procedure was first drafted in June 1999 following the Supreme Court's directions in the Second Judges Case. It laid down the procedure for appointing judges to the higher judiciary under the Collegium system.

In 2015, Parliament enacted the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, seeking to replace the Collegium system with a commission comprising representatives of the judiciary and the Central government to recommend appointments to constitutional courts.

However, on October 16, 2015, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court struck down the NJAC Act and the 99th Constitutional Amendment as unconstitutional, holding that they violated the independence of the judiciary.

Following the verdict, the Supreme Court invited suggestions to improve the Collegium system and make judicial appointments more transparent. On December 16, 2015, the Court directed the Central government to amend and finalise the MoP after considering the suggestions received.

However, the revised MoP could not be finalised due to differences between the Collegium and the Central government.

The disagreement became particularly evident during the tenure of former CJI TS Thakur. In March 2017, the Supreme Court Collegium unanimously rejected the Centre's proposal to give the government the power to reject names recommended for appointment as High Court judges on grounds of "national security". The Collegium also rejected the proposal for setting up a permanent secretariat for judicial appointments.

The delay in finalising the MoP was subsequently raised before the Supreme Court in October 2017. A bench of Justices AK Goel and UU Lalit, while hearing a petition filed by advocate RP Luthra, sought the Centre's response and observed that the process could not be delayed indefinitely, particularly when more than a year and ten months had passed since the December 2015 order.

However, the matter was later withdrawn from that bench and placed before a bench headed by then CJI Dipak Misra, which recalled the earlier order.

In the present petition, Loka Prahari has sought directions to the CJI, exercising his administrative powers, to make the necessary changes to the MoP in accordance with the 2015 NJAC judgment.

It has further sought a direction to the Union Ministry of Law and Justice to finalise the revised MoP within one month after consulting the CJI.

The plea argues that the existing MoP suffers from serious shortcomings due to a lack of transparency and objectivity, which affects the quality and functioning of judges in constitutional courts and, consequently, the litigants' right to justice.

"Finalisation of the MoP for appointment of judges of constitutional courts at the earliest is necessary to ensure that it meets the requirement of the selection process ensuring that they possess four essential qualities of impartiality, fearlessness, transparency and purity mandated by the Constitution Bench in the case of Chief Election Commissioner and Election commissioners," the petition states.

It further argues that these qualities are particularly important for judges of constitutional courts, especially the Supreme Court, as their decisions are final.