The first demand of the CJP manifesto is, narrowly, a ban on the Rajya Sabha route for retired Chief Justices. Read in isolation, that demand is small enough to fit on a notebook page. Read in context — as the opening clause of a citizen-drafted judicial reform agenda — it is the first move in a much larger argument about how the Indian judiciary needs to change.
This article is what that argument looks like when extended honestly. Call it the judicial reform wishlist CJP would draft if it got a serious legislative draftsperson and three weeks of board time. Read it as a complement to our Rajya Sabha ban explainer, not as an alternative to it.
1. Fix the collegium — without surrendering independence
The collegium system, in which Supreme Court and High Court judges are appointed by a body of senior judges, has been criticised across the spectrum for decades:
- By the political class — for being opaque and self-perpetuating.
- By the legal academy — for being a constitutional invention with no textual basis, an artefact of the Second Judges Case (1993).
- By bar associations — for the slow pace of appointments and the politically charged "uplifted" or "blocked" names.
The 2014 NJAC alternative was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015. The country has been stuck since. A CJP-aligned reform would push for:
- A published Memorandum of Procedure with statutory force, not the current draft-by-correspondence regime.
- Mandatory publication of collegium minutes after a fixed delay.
- A diversity audit — gender, caste, region — published with every elevation cycle.
- An independent secretariat for the collegium with its own budget, so the executive cannot stall the process by holding the file.
2. Pendency: India's slow-moving emergency
Pendency in Indian courts has been a cliché since the 1980s. The numbers, however, have only gotten worse.
- Total cases pending across Indian courts: over 5 crore, on the National Judicial Data Grid.
- Cases pending in the Supreme Court alone: around 80,000.
- High Court pendency: over 60 lakh.
- District court pendency: over 4 crore.
The CJP-aligned demand here is operational, not headline:
- A statutory time limit for bail hearings — 72 hours for any first-time-arrest bail application under any law including UAPA. Bail by default if not heard.
- Specialised commercial benches at every High Court to remove the commercial pendency that crowds out everything else.
- A doubling of the sanctioned strength of judges at every level, funded by a dedicated cess. India operates at roughly one-third the per-capita judge-strength of the United States.
- Mandatory court working days — the long-vacation system, which dates to the British era and the Indian summer, deserves a hard look in an air-conditioned 2026.
3. Post-retirement curbs — extending demand #1
Demand #1 of the CJP manifesto targets the Rajya Sabha route for retiring CJIs. The wider citizen reform extends the principle:
- A two-year cooling-off period before any retired Supreme Court judge can accept a government appointment of any kind — gubernatorial, NHRC, NGT, one-man inquiry commission, BCCI ethics committee, PSU arbitration panel.
- A lifetime ban on Rajya Sabha President's-nominee posts for retiring SC judges.
- Full public disclosure of any appointment to any government-paying role within five years of retirement.
"The judiciary cannot remain independent if its highest office is auditioning for the next job while still on the bench."
— CJP Manifesto, point 1
4. Cause-list and judgement transparency
The cause list — the list of cases scheduled before each bench on each day — is published. The judgements are published. What is not published, in a useful format, is everything in between:
- Which cases were taken up; which were skipped; why.
- Which mentioning slips were granted; which were not.
- Constitution bench composition rationale.
- Master-of-roster decisions on which bench gets a politically sensitive matter.
The CJP-aligned reform would push for a structured data publication mandate — every reasoned decision on listing, in CSV form, downloadable from the Supreme Court e-Committee site. Civil-society law-research outfits like the Vidhi Centre and the DAKSH Society have made similar calls for years.
5. Tribunal architecture — the slow erosion
The tribunalisation of dispute resolution — NCLT, NGT, NCDRC, AFT, ITAT and a dozen others — has shifted huge amounts of justice delivery out of the regular courts and into bodies whose chairpersons are appointed by the executive. The CJP-aligned reform here would push:
- An umbrella tribunal services act with independent appointment, fixed-term tenure, and a single appellate channel.
- A bar on the executive selecting members of tribunals that adjudicate against the executive (NGT against environmental ministries, AFT against the armed forces, etc.).
What this list is and isn't
This list is not a legislative bill. It is what an honest opposition would put in front of a serious reform consultation if invited. It also is not partisan — every item on this list has been argued for, at one point or another, by lawyers and judges of every political colour. The CJP's contribution is to bundle them into a single public-pressure package and refuse to let the conversation get squeezed out by election-cycle theatrics.
It also fits cleanly into the larger CJP architecture: accountability for the Election Commission, structural correction in women's reservation, civic literacy for the young. Each one names a constitutional body, names its failure, and names a fix. Judicial reform is the same logic, applied to the institution that, in the end, decides whether the rest of it is enforceable.
Sign on. Join CJP — and tell us which of these five reforms you would put first.