BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 101 of 144

Correct — D, 1 and 3. Statements 2 and 4 are false, and statement 4 is false twice over, which is the whole design of the question. Statement 1 is the Supreme Court's own formulation. In the Third Judges Case — In re Special Reference No. 1 of 1998, (1998) 7 SCC 739, a Presidential reference under Article 143 — the Court laid down that the Chief Justice of India "must make a recommendation to appoint a Judge of the Supreme Court ... in consultation with the four seniormost puisne Judges of the Supreme Court". Puisne means every judge other than the Chief Justice, so CJI plus four is exactly the five-member body statement 1 describes. Statement 3 is true as a description of the route to office: since 1993 no judge of the Supreme Court or of a High Court has been appointed except on a collegium recommendation, and there is no parallel channel — no examination, no commission, no direct executive nomination. Statement 2 is false because no Act of Parliament ever created the collegium; it was read into the single word "consultation" in Articles 124(2) and 217(1) by the Court itself. The proof is what happened when Parliament did legislate: the Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, 2014 and the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014 both received Presidential assent on 31 December 2014 and were brought into force on 13 April 2015, and a five-judge Bench struck both down on 16 October 2015 by 4:1, Justice Chelameswar dissenting. Parliament's one attempt to replace the collegium was voided; it plainly did not evolve it. Statement 4 names the wrong case and the wrong judge. The collegium was created in the Second Judges Case — Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India, (1993) 4 SCC 441 — a nine-judge Bench whose judgment was delivered on 6 October 1993 and authored by Justice J. S. Verma. The First Judges Case is S. P. Gupta v. Union of India, decided on 30 December 1981 by a seven-judge Bench presided over by Justice P. N. Bhagwati, and it held the opposite of what statement 4 claims: that "it is only consultation and not concurrence of the Chief Justice of India that is provided in Cl. (1) of Art. 217" — executive primacy, the very ruling the 1993 Bench overturned. The year 1993 belongs to one case and Justice Bhagwati to another. That leaves 1 and 3 standing, so the answer is (d). Two honest notes. First, the residual doubt sits entirely on the word "only" in statement 3: the appointing authority named in the Constitution is the President, and the word "collegium" appears nowhere in the constitutional text, so a strict reader could call statement 3 loosely worded and move to (a). We read it as a statement about how names are selected, which is how it is universally used, and the answer follows. Second, a genuine curiosity that may be the source of the error in statement 4 — Justice Bhagwati did use the word "collegium" in S. P. Gupta, but only as a suggestion for reform, writing that "there must be a collegium to make recommendation to the President in regard to appointment of a Supreme Court or High Court Judge". A suggestion in 1981 is not the system created in 1993.

• (a)Only 1 — The serious rival, and the reason this question is finely balanced rather than easy. It is right about statements 2 and 4 and drops statement 3 on the strength of the word "only" — arguing that Articles 124(2) and 217(1) vest the appointment in the President by warrant under his hand and seal, and never mention a collegium at all. That is a textualist reading of a statement that is about selection, not about the instrument of appointment. In practice there is no second route to the higher judiciary, so statement 3 stands and (a) drops one true statement too many.
• (b)1 and 2 — This requires statement 2 to be true, i.e. that Parliament evolved the collegium by law. Nothing in any statute creates it — Parliament's legislative power over the Supreme Court under Article 124(1) extends to fixing the number of judges, which it does through the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956, not to designing the appointment mechanism. The 2014 NJAC laws show the distinction: when Parliament finally did legislate on appointments, the Court struck the legislation down in 2015 for violating the basic structure.
• (c)3 and 4 — This needs statement 4 to be true and statement 1 to be false, and both halves fail. Statement 4 mismatches every element it names: the collegium came from the Second Judges Case of 1993, authored by Justice J. S. Verma, while the First Judges Case is S. P. Gupta of 1981, presided over by Justice P. N. Bhagwati, which ruled for executive primacy. Statement 1, meanwhile, is a direct restatement of what the Third Judges Case of 1998 held, so dropping it is indefensible.

The Constitution does not contain the word "collegium". Article 124(2) says every Supreme Court judge "shall be appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal after consultation with such of the Judges of the Supreme Court and of the High Courts in the States as the President may deem necessary", with a proviso that in appointing any judge other than the Chief Justice "the Chief Justice of India shall always be consulted"; Article 217(1) uses the same "after consultation" formula for High Court judges. The Constituent Assembly considered and rejected a stronger word — B. Pocker Sahib and Mahboob Ali Baig Sahib both moved amendments to substitute the CJI's "concurrence" for mere consultation, and both failed. The entire collegium system is therefore judicial interpretation of that one deliberately weak word, built across three cases: S. P. Gupta (1981) read consultation as falling short of concurrence and gave the executive the last word; the Second Judges Case (1993) reversed that, holding that the CJI's opinion has primacy but must be "formed collectively", after taking the views of his senior colleagues; and the Third Judges Case (1998) fixed the collective as four seniormost puisne judges for Supreme Court appointments and two for High Court appointments.

Reason by elimination on the two statements that need only one fact each. Statement 2 falls the moment you remember the NJAC: Parliament legislated on judicial appointments exactly once, in 2014, and the Court voided that law in 2015 — you cannot both have evolved a system and have had your replacement for it struck down. Statement 4 falls on the year-and-name mismatch: 1993 is the Second Judges Case, the First Judges Case is 1981, and Bhagwati J. sat in the 1981 one. Notice that BPSC has stacked two errors into a single statement, so a candidate who catches either one is safe; you do not need to know both. With 2 and 4 gone, options (b) and (c) go with them, and the paper has narrowed to (a) "Only 1" versus (d) "1 and 3". Everything now turns on statement 3, and this is where the answer is genuinely finely balanced — "only through the collegium system" is true of how names are chosen and loose about who signs the warrant. The tiebreaker is that BPSC's statement 1 and statement 3 are both drawn from the standard description of the system, while statements 2 and 4 are the planted errors, and a four-statement set built to punish two specific misconceptions is not usually also hiding a third in the plainest sentence on the list.

• Second Judges Case = Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India, (1993) 4 SCC 441; nine-judge Bench; judgment delivered 6 October 1993; authored by Justice J. S. Verma — this is what created the collegium
• First Judges Case = S. P. Gupta v. Union of India, decided 30 December 1981 (AIR 1982 SC 149); seven-judge Bench presided over by Justice P. N. Bhagwati; held that Article 217(1) requires "only consultation and not concurrence" of the CJI, giving the executive primacy
• Third Judges Case = In re Special Reference No. 1 of 1998, (1998) 7 SCC 739, a Presidential reference under Article 143: the CJI must recommend Supreme Court appointments in consultation with the four seniormost puisne judges — hence a five-member collegium
• For High Court appointments the Supreme Court end of the collegium is smaller: the CJI plus the two seniormost puisne judges, a three-member body, working with the High Court's own Chief Justice and two seniormost judges
• Articles 124(2) and 217(1) vest appointment in the President "by warrant under his hand and seal after consultation"; the words "collegium" and "collegium system" appear nowhere in the Constitution
• The Constituent Assembly rejected amendments by B. Pocker Sahib and Mahboob Ali Baig Sahib that would have required the Chief Justice of India's concurrence rather than consultation
• Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, 2014 and the NJAC Act, 2014: assented 31 December 2014, in force 13 April 2015, struck down 16 October 2015 by a five-judge Bench, 4:1, judgment by Justice J. S. Khehar with Justice Chelameswar dissenting
• Parliament's actual statutory power over the Supreme Court under Article 124(1) is to fix the number of judges — exercised through the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956 — not to design the appointment process
• Justice Bhagwati used the word "collegium" in S. P. Gupta itself, but only as a suggestion for reform: "there must be a collegium to make recommendation to the President in regard to appointment of a Supreme Court or High Court Judge"

• Swapping the Judges Cases — the collegium is the SECOND Judges Case (1993), not the First (1981); the First went the other way and favoured the executive
• Attributing the collegium to Justice P. N. Bhagwati; the 1993 majority was authored by Justice J. S. Verma, and Bhagwati sat in the 1981 case that the 1993 Bench overruled
• Assuming the collegium has the same size everywhere — it is five members (CJI + four) for Supreme Court appointments but three (CJI + two) at the Supreme Court end of a High Court appointment

BPSC asks the collegium as a four-statement true/false set in which the planted errors are almost always a wrong case name, a wrong year, or a claim that Parliament or the Constitution created it — so the marks lie in dates and attributions. UPSC very rarely names the Judges Cases; it prefers the surrounding architecture, asking what safeguards judicial autonomy, who may increase the number of Supreme Court judges, or who removes a judge, and expects you to distinguish a constitutional provision from a judicial convention.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The expansion of the Supreme Court collegium to the Chief Justice of India and the four seniormost puisne Judges was laid down in

  • (a)S. P. Gupta v. Union of India (1981)
  • (b)Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India (1993)
  • (c)In re Special Reference No. 1 of 1998
  • (d)Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India (2015)

  Answer(c) In re Special Reference No. 1 of 1998 — the Third Judges Case, a Presidential reference under Article 143; the 1993 case had required consultation with only the two seniormost judges.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, which created the National Judicial Appointments Commission, was struck down by the Supreme Court in

  • (a)2013
  • (b)2014
  • (c)2015
  • (d)2016

  Answer(c) 2015 — struck down on 16 October 2015 by a five-judge Bench, 4:1, for violating the basic structure; the amendment had come into force only on 13 April 2015.