On Supersessions: Academic and Non-Academic
Nandini Sundar | 13 March 2025 | The Wire
The principle of seniority in appointments – whether it be of chief justices, army chiefs or heads of a university department – is not some quaint relic of a colonial bureaucracy that can be dispensed with at the pleasure of the current ruler. It is an indispensable mechanism to ensure institutional autonomy and the long-term survival of any institution. Once the seniority principle is violated, it becomes a free for all – with allegiance to the ruling ideology or personal favouritism overtaking merit and duty in all spheres of activity. Members of an institution become more concerned with whether their speech and actions please those in power, than with what their duties and obligations actually are.
It is not surprising that the supersession of Justice A.N. Ray over three senior judges in 1973 and of Justice M.H. Beg in 1977 over the claims of Justice H.R. Khanna are still remembered as egregious Emergency-era transgressions. It is another matter that currently there are several high court judges who have been elevated to the Supreme Court over the heads of other senior colleagues. At least in those cases the Collegium is trying to justify its choice on the basis of regional representation…