External forces impeding collegium recommendations: Justice Dipankar Datta

Supreme Court judge Justice Dipankar Datta on Saturday remarked that the external forces which prevent the Collegium's recommendations from being acted upon should be dealt with sternly..However, Justice Datta also said that the process to appoint the judges in India should be fair and transparent. He was speaking at a felicitation ceremony organized by Bombay High Court Bar Association of Nagpur Bench in honour of Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai.Addressing CJI Gavai, Justice Datta said there if judges have to continue appointing judges, then all the recommendations made by the Supreme Court Collegium must be acted upon."That does not happen. I recall when I was a member of the Calcutta High Court Collegium in 2019, we had recommended a member of the bar six years. Nothing has been done. He is now 58 or 59... Why does this happen? Has anybody questioned? So therefore, the external forces which prevent the Collegium's recommendations from being acted upon should be dealt with sternly and I feel that whatever proceedings are pending should be given top priority to ensure that merit, merit and only merit is considered and not extraneous considerations," he added..Justice Datta also said it was high time to dispense with the misconceived notion that judges appoint judges, and highlighted the instances when senior judges were superseded by the State."Sir, this is an appeal to you. It's high time that we dispense the misconceived notion that judges appoints judges. Critics of the collegium system have been vociferous - why should there be a collegium system?," he said."Let me go back to the 1980s of the last century and recall 3 Chief Justices of Bombay High Court. Chief Justice MN Chandurkar, Chief Justice Chittatosh Mookerjee and Chief Justice PD Desai. Those who have practiced before these three Justices and others would vouch that there were no less than the judges who made it to the Supreme Court in the 1980s. Does anybody question the pre-collegial system of appointment of judges? We only refer to the supersession of the three judges by a judge in 1974. Just prior to the Kesavananda Bharati judgment and then the supersession of Justice Khanna by the next senior Supreme Court Judge. But why doesn't anybody question why didn't Justice Chandurkar, Chief Justice Mookerjee and Chief Justice Desai did not make it?," he added.