Critically examine the Supreme Court’s judgement on ‘National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014’ with reference to appointment of judges of higher judiciary in India.

In Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India (2015) — the Fourth Judges case — a Constitution Bench struck down the 99th Constitutional Amendment and the NJAC Act, 2014 by a 4:1 majority, reviving the collegium system for appointing judges of the higher judiciary.

The Court's Reasoning

• Independence of the judiciary is part of the basic structure, and primacy of the judiciary in appointments is integral to that independence.
• The NJAC — the CJI, two senior-most judges, the Law Minister and two eminent persons, with any two members able to veto a name — could subordinate judicial opinion to the executive, the largest litigant before the courts.
• Justice Chelameswar's dissent flagged the collegium's opacity and lack of accountability.

Critical Evaluation

• Strength: the verdict insulated appointments from executive patronage at a time of strong single-party dominance.
• Weaknesses: judicial primacy is nowhere in Article 124's text, which speaks only of consultation; the collegium's opacity, diversity deficit and absence of criteria persist; the revised Memorandum of Procedure remains unsettled, and Centre-collegium friction delays appointments even today.

The judgment secured independence but deferred accountability. A transparent, criteria-based appointments mechanism that retains judicial primacy — a reformed collegium with a permanent secretariat and published norms — can reconcile both constitutional values.