New Delhi: The Supreme Court collegium has not given reasons for judicial appointments in the recent past, and this lack of transparency creates room for individuals who later make unconstitutional or derogatory remarks to enter the judiciary, said Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan on Saturday (August 1).Justice Bhuyan said this in his keynote address at the launch of The Judicial Transparency Index, a report by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy’s JALDI, which assesses the disclosure of information by the Supreme Court and high courts on their official websites. The report, released August 1, which used more than 70 indicators to examine the performance of both high courts and the Supreme Court, noted that while recent Collegium resolutions concerning appointments and transfers of Supreme Court and high court judges are available online, many do not provide reasons for the recommendations. ‘Should be in the public domain’Noting that the last three statements of the Supreme Court collegium, including the latest one in 2025, did not contain any reason for recommending elevation, as opposed to earlier statements, Justice Bhuyan asked, “Is it going back on the transparency principle?”“These are important issues. Citizens…have a right to know what is happening in the courts. They have a right to know who would be their judges, they have a right to know what kind of judgments the honorable judge has delivered. This should be in the public domain,” he added.The lack of transparency in judicial appointments could allow people to enter the judiciary who later describe a group of people as “ants” and “get away with it,” he said, calling such remarks “completely unconstitutional”.Lack of transparency is a “disservice”“By not giving reasons, you are actually doing a disservice to judges who have done tremendous work. By not doing this, we are allowing some kind of people who come inside the judiciary who will later go on to describe a group of people as ‘ants’ this and that. It’s completely unconstitutional. To prevent entry of such people, there should be some discussion; there should be some reasons given. What harm is caused by discussion in public,” LiveLaw quoted him as saying.Per the Indian Express, Justice Bhuyan referred to the Constitution Bench judgment that brought the office of the Chief Justice of India within the ambit of the Right to Information Act, and highlighted the relationship between judicial independence and accountability. He said that while courts had made significant advances in transparency in their adjudicatory functions including through live-streaming, the same openness had not necessarily extended to the judiciary’s own institutional processes.