India’s system for appointing judges to its higher courts, the Collegium, has been a recurring source of friction between the judiciary and the executive throughout the Modi government’s tenure. This article explains how that friction has actually manifested in specific cases and data, distinct from the 2014-2015 attempt to replace the system entirely, covered in our separate article on the National Judicial Appointments Commission.
How the Collegium System Works
Under the Collegium system, judges to the Supreme Court and High Courts are recommended by a group of senior judges, led by the Chief Justice of India for Supreme Court appointments, with the government’s formal role limited to processing and, in principle, approving these judicially recommended names rather than independently selecting judges itself, a system that has operated as India’s primary judicial appointment mechanism since a series of Supreme Court judgments in the 1990s established judicial primacy over the process.
The “Segregation” Practice That Has Drawn Repeated Criticism
A specific practice has become a recurring flashpoint: rather than approving or rejecting an entire batch of Collegium-recommended names together, the government has at various points split individual resolutions, clearing some names from a given list while withholding others, according to LiveLaw’s analysis piece specifically examining this pattern, headlined “Centre Splitting Up Collegium Resolutions: Exception Becoming A Norm?” This practice has drawn direct judicial criticism; former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi publicly objected to it during his tenure, since selectively clearing names from within a single recommended batch can disrupt the relative seniority order among the judges involved, a consequence with real professional and career implications for the specific judges affected.
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The Data on How Often Names Get Cleared
More recent tracking provides a clearer picture of just how much this varies over time. According to the Supreme Court Observer’s tracking, the Union government cleared 96 percent of names recommended during Chief Justice B.R. Gavai’s tenure leading the Collegium, a notably high clearance rate, while under the immediately following Collegium led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna, according to further Supreme Court Observer tracking, 24 percent of names proposed specifically for High Court elevation were not cleared by the Union government, a substantial year-to-year swing in clearance rates that illustrates just how variable this relationship has been even within a relatively short span of time.
The Saurabh Kirpal Case
One individual case has become particularly emblematic of these tensions: senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal’s recommendation for a High Court judgeship faced years of delay, with reporting by both Deccan Herald and The Wire indicating his sexual orientation was widely understood to be a factor in the government’s reluctance, despite the Collegium reiterating his name multiple times against the government’s continued reservations. Then-Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud specifically addressed the case publicly, stating that “the sexual orientation of a candidate for judgeship has nothing to do with ability,” according to coverage by JURIST, a direct judicial rebuttal to the apparent basis for the government’s prolonged delay in a case that eventually became one of the most closely watched individual examples of Collegium-executive friction during this period.
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The Justice Varma Cash Row and Renewed Reform Debate
A separate, unrelated controversy in March 2025 further reignited debate over the broader appointments and accountability system: the discovery of cash at the residence of Justice Yashwant Varma, according to Wikipedia’s detailed account of the episode, prompted the Collegium to recommend his transfer, while separately triggering renewed public commentary specifically questioning whether judicial self-regulation through the Collegium system provides adequate accountability, with several analysts, including coverage by The Print, explicitly reviving discussion of NJAC-style reform in the aftermath, connecting this individual scandal to the much longer-running structural debate covered in our companion article.
Why This Friction Persists Regardless of Which Party Governs
It’s worth noting that tension between the executive and judiciary over appointments is not a phenomenon unique to the Modi government specifically; previous governments across different political parties have also, at various points, delayed or contested specific Collegium recommendations, reflecting a more structural, ongoing institutional tension between an executive branch that ultimately must formally notify judicial appointments and a judiciary that has, since the 1990s, insisted on retaining primary control over who gets recommended in the first place, a genuine separation-of-powers friction that predates the current government considerably even as specific individual cases and data points, like the ones outlined above, capture how it has played out during this particular period.
Bottom Line
Friction between the government and the judiciary over judicial appointments has continued throughout the Modi government’s tenure in specific, documented ways: a recurring government practice of selectively clearing names from Collegium-recommended batches, clearance rates that swung from 96 percent under one Chief Justice’s tenure to just 76 percent under the next, the years-long delay in Saurabh Kirpal’s case that drew direct public criticism from the sitting Chief Justice, and the 2025 Justice Varma cash controversy, which reignited broader questions about judicial accountability and appointment reform even as the underlying Collegium system itself has remained formally in place throughout this entire period.
Disclaimer: This article is based on publicly available Supreme Court and government records and news reports listed below. It is written for general informational purposes and does not represent an official statement from the Government of India or the Supreme Court of India.
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