The Judiciary: Structure and Judicial Appointments

Nowhere does the Constitution say the word “Collegium.” Yet for over three decades, a small group of judges — not the government — has picked India’s own judges. How did that happen, and why did an attempt to change it fail?

1Structure of the judiciary

Must Know

1.1 How is India’s judiciary organised?

India runs one single, unified judicial system. That’s worth pausing on. The United States runs separate federal and state court systems. India doesn’t. One hierarchy handles both central and state laws, in three tiers: the Supreme Court at the top, High Courts below it, and Subordinate or District Courts at the base.

Appeals flow upward through this same ladder. A case can start in a district court and, in theory, climb all the way to the Supreme Court. That single chain is what “unified” means here — not one court, but one connected system.

Good to Know

1.2 What are the Supreme Court’s three jurisdictions?

The Supreme Court doesn’t just hear appeals. It has three distinct powers. Original jurisdiction lets it hear certain disputes directly, like a conflict between the Centre and a state. It also covers writ petitions under Article 32, which let any citizen approach the Court directly to enforce a fundamental right.

Appellate jurisdiction lets it hear appeals from High Courts, on constitutional, civil, and criminal matters. This is the Court’s biggest workload by far. Most cases the Supreme Court hears in a given year are appeals, not original suits.

Advisory jurisdiction lets the President ask the Court’s opinion on a legal question, under Article 143. This power has been used sparingly. One well-known example: in 2012, the President referred a question on natural-resource allocation to the Court, after the 2G spectrum ruling. The Court’s opinion in an advisory reference isn’t binding the way a regular judgment is, but governments rarely ignore it.

Good to Know

1.3 What do High Courts and Subordinate Courts do?

India has 25 High Courts, each with jurisdiction over one state or a small group of states or union territories. Like the Supreme Court, a High Court is a court of record, with the power to punish for contempt of itself. It also has its own writ jurisdiction under Article 226. This power is wider than the Supreme Court’s own writ power. A High Court can issue a writ for any legal right, not just a fundamental right.

Below the High Courts sit the Subordinate Courts: district and sessions courts, run by district judges. Under them sit specialised courts for narrower jobs. Family courts handle divorce and custody cases. Fast-track courts handle cases needing quick disposal. Small-causes courts handle low-value civil claims. This is where most Indians actually meet the justice system. It’s also where the huge majority of pending cases sit, not at the Supreme Court.

2How judges are appointed: the Collegium

Must Know

2.1 What does the Constitution actually say about appointments?

Articles 124 and 217 cover this. The original text says the President appoints judges “after consultation” with the Chief Justice of India and other judges the President thinks fit to consult. Notice the word: consultation, not concurrence. The Constitution’s own text never mentions a Collegium at all. That word, and the system built around it, came later, through court judgments, not through the written Constitution.

Must Know

2.2 How did the Collegium system actually form?

It took three cases, spread across 17 years, often called the Judges Cases.

First Judges Case (S.P. Gupta v. Union of India, 1981). The Supreme Court ruled that “consultation” in Articles 124 and 217 did not mean “concurrence.” The CJI’s opinion was just one input among several. If the government disagreed with the CJI, the government’s view could win. This gave the executive real weight in appointments, and it stayed the law for over a decade.

Second Judges Case (Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India, 1993). A nine-judge bench reversed the First Judges Case. It ruled that “consultation” must mean effective consultation, and that the CJI’s opinion, formed together with the two senior-most judges, would now bind the government. This ruling is the actual birth of the Collegium system.

Third Judges Case (In re Presidential Reference, 1998). The President asked the Court, under Article 143, to clarify exactly who counts as “the CJI” for this purpose. The Court’s answer fixed the Collegium’s shape as it stands today: the CJI plus the four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court, not the CJI acting alone.

Good to Know

2.3 Why does the Collegium draw criticism?

The Collegium picks judges behind closed doors. It has no written, published criteria for who gets chosen. It doesn’t release minutes of its meetings, except for a short public resolution once a decision is made. Critics call this a lack of transparency, and point to allegations of favouring judges’ own relatives and colleagues.

One real flashpoint: the government can send a Collegium recommendation back for reconsideration. But once the Collegium reiterates the same name, the government is expected to appoint it. In practice, some reiterated names have still sat unappointed for months, or longer, with neither side publicly explaining the delay. This tug-of-war, over names the Collegium has already cleared twice, is exactly the kind of friction critics point to.

3The NJAC experiment, and where reform matters most

Must Know

3.1 What was the NJAC, and why was it struck down?

Parliament tried to replace the Collegium in 2014, through the 99th Constitutional Amendment. It created the National Judicial Appointments Commission, or NJAC: the CJI, two senior-most Supreme Court judges, the Union Law Minister, and two eminent persons. The government would have a real seat at the table again.

In 2015, the Supreme Court struck the NJAC down, by a 4:1 majority. Its reasoning: judicial independence is part of the Constitution’s basic structure, and giving the executive a direct vote over appointments threatened that independence. The Collegium came back into force the same day.

Great to Know

3.2 Where does reform actually matter most?

Most of the Collegium debate is about the Supreme Court and High Courts. But over 87% of India’s pending cases sit in Subordinate Courts, not at the top. A vacant district-court seat delays ordinary people far more directly than any Supreme Court appointment debate. Judicial reform that only fixes the top of the pyramid leaves the part most Indians actually deal with untouched.

Two proposals get raised often for this lower tier. One is an All India Judicial Service, a common recruitment exam for district judges, similar to how the UPSC recruits IAS officers. It’s meant to fill subordinate-court vacancies faster and more uniformly across states. The other is the e-Courts Mission, a government project digitising case filing and tracking, so a case doesn’t stall just because a paper file is stuck somewhere. Neither proposal touches the Collegium at all — they aim at the level below it, where the actual case backlog lives.

Current Affairs

3.3 What’s happening with the Collegium right now?

In May 2026, the Collegium under Chief Justice of India Surya Kant recommended a fresh round of Supreme Court appointments. This is part of a push to raise the Court’s working judge strength. A separate proposal has floated raising the Supreme Court’s sanctioned strength from 34 to 38 judges, aimed at cutting the case backlog at the top. Neither move touches the underlying appointment process itself — the Collegium’s method stays exactly as the 1993 and 1998 rulings set it.

4Exam Practice: PYQ Pattern

Common traps in this topic

• Mixing up the S.P. Gupta case (1981, gave government primacy) with the Second Judges Case (1993, created the Collegium) — they point in opposite directions.
• Assuming the Supreme Court and High Courts are separate systems from Subordinate Courts — all three sit in one unified hierarchy.
• Both the Supreme Court and High Courts are “courts of record,” with power to punish for contempt of themselves — don’t assume this power belongs to the Supreme Court alone.