Kiren Rijiju has time and again questioned the collegium system of appointment of judges, noting that it was "opaque and not transparent". Recently, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar said that the striking down of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act by the Supreme Court was a severe compromise of parliamentary sovereignty.
Former Supreme Court judge Rohinton Fali Nariman has slammed Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju for his "diatribe" against the collegium system for appointment of judges, and said the government sitting on the names of judges recommended by the collegium was "deadly" for democracy.
Nariman also said that if the last bastion of independent judiciary falls, then the country would enter the "abyss of a new dark age". What is the independence of the judiciary if independent and fearless judges are not being appointed, he said.
He was speaking on Friday at the Mumbai University while delivering the seventh Chief Justice M C Chagla Memorial Lecture.