Jagan’s attack on Justice Ramana is a smear on SC collegium

Vijayawada : The initial lull has made way for heated polemics, and legal luminaries remained poles apart, giving out divergent opinions for and against Andhra Pradesh (AP) Chief Minister Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s complaint to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) on the question of making the judiciary accountable and transparent.
Reddy’s whistle continues to blow around the collegium system of the Supreme Court (SC) since October 8, when his government made public his high-voltage complaint against judges of the Andhra Pradesh High Court. It has shocked the country, to say the least, given that such unprecedented allegations have been made against the the judiciary.  Among a bunch of dossiers annexed with his letter to Supreme Court CJI Sharad Arvind Bobde, Jagan quoted former Supreme Court judge Justice J. Chalameswar’s mentioning of   “unwarranted intimacy” between previous (2014-19) Andhra Pradesh CM N. Chandrababu Naidu and CJI in-waiting Justice N. V. Ramana in appointment of judges for the AP/Telangana High Court in 2016 so as to lend legitimacy to his crusade.
Under the spotlight The “use and abuse” of the Supreme Court collegium conspicuously remains at the centrestage in the whole discourse. Justice Ramana happens to be one of the five jurists in the collegium tasked with appointment of judges for the Supreme Court and the high courts in “consultation” with the executive.
The contention among the political class against the SC’s collegiums is deep-rooted and widespread as well, and it seeks legitimacy through Justice Chalameswar’s whistle blowing.
 Justice Chalameswar’s critique of the Supreme Court’s collegium system has shaped the discourse on judicial accountability. In 2015, he expressed dissent in the ruling against the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC).