Without a final resolution, there was nothing to disclose
In a democracy that prizes accountability, the question of who guards the guardians remains perpetually contested. Activist Anjali Bhardwaj's years-long effort to obtain the agenda of a December 2018 Supreme Court Collegium meeting — a gathering that may have shaped the composition of India's highest court — ended Wednesday when the Delhi High Court upheld the refusal to disclose it, reasoning that without a formal resolution, there is nothing the law requires to be revealed. The ruling does not merely close a file; it reaffirms that the process by which India's judiciary appoints itself may remain, by design, beyond the reach of public scrutiny.
- A single RTI request for a meeting agenda became a years-long legal odyssey through the Supreme Court, the Central Information Commission, and two layers of the Delhi High Court — each door closing in succession.
- At the heart of the dispute lies a December 2018 Collegium meeting where two judges were reportedly approved for elevation, only for that decision to be quietly reversed by a reconstituted Collegium weeks later — a reversal that Justice Madan Lokur publicly lamented had never been explained.
- Authorities at every level deflected disclosure with a circular argument: because no formal resolution was signed, no document legally exists, and what does not exist cannot be surrendered under the RTI Act.
- Bhardwaj's precise demand — the agenda itself, not a summary or inference — was never directly answered, swallowed instead by procedural logic that treats incompleteness as a shield rather than a gap.
- The Delhi High Court's bench found no grounds to disturb the lower court's reasoning, leaving the Collegium's internal deliberations legally invisible and the machinery of judicial self-appointment operating without a public record.
Anjali Bhardwaj wanted to know what happened inside a room on December 12, 2018. Her RTI request was simple: she asked for the agenda of a Supreme Court Collegium meeting — the body that decides which judges ascend to India's highest court. The Supreme Court refused. The Central Information Commission refused. And on Wednesday, the Delhi High Court refused as well.
The court's reasoning turned on a technicality with large consequences: because no formal resolution emerged from that December meeting, there was nothing the law obliged anyone to disclose. A bench led by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad upheld the earlier dismissal of Bhardwaj's petition, finding no basis to intervene.
What drove her persistence was a trail of suggestive details. Justice Madan Lokur, who retired days after the December meeting, later expressed frustration that its resolution had never appeared on the Supreme Court's website. Former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi's autobiography revealed that two judges — Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Rajendra Menon — had reportedly been approved for elevation at that meeting, only for the matter to stall after an alleged leak. When a new Collegium formed in January 2019, it declined to clear the same two names.
At each stage of appeal, authorities argued that because the January 2019 Collegium treated the December decisions as incomplete, no formal resolution had ever been validly adopted — and therefore no document existed to hand over. The single judge who first heard the petition extended this logic further, holding that Collegium decisions live only in signed, collective resolutions, and that newspaper accounts of what transpired carried no evidentiary weight.
Bhardwaj argued before the high court that she had asked for the agenda itself — a document that would have existed before any resolution was or wasn't passed. The bench was unmoved. The December 12 meeting remains sealed: who proposed what, which names were discussed, what deliberations unfolded — all of it protected by the absence of a final signature.
The ruling crystallises a particular understanding of judicial transparency in India: that the Collegium's inner workings are not public business, that unfinished deliberations need not be explained, and that the process by which the judiciary renews itself may continue, lawfully, in the dark.
Anjali Bhardwaj wanted to know what happened in a room on December 12, 2018. She filed a right-to-information request asking for the agenda of a Supreme Court Collegium meeting—the body that decides which judges get promoted to India's highest court. The Supreme Court said no. She appealed. The Central Information Commission said no again. She went to court. On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court said no as well.
The court's reasoning was technical but consequential: there was no formal resolution from that December meeting, so there was nothing to disclose. A bench led by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad upheld a single judge's earlier dismissal of Bhardwaj's petition, finding no grounds to interfere with the decision.
What made Bhardwaj push so hard? She had hints that something significant had occurred in that meeting. In January 2019, Justice Madan Lokur—who had been part of the Collegium and retired just days after the December meeting—gave an interview expressing frustration that the December 12 resolution had never been posted on the Supreme Court website. Later, in his autobiography, former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi revealed that two judges had received approval for elevation to the Supreme Court in that December meeting: Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, then Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court, and Justice Rajendra Menon, then Chief Justice of Delhi High Court. But something went wrong. The matter allegedly leaked. Gogoi put it on hold. When a new Collegium formed in January 2019 after Lokur's retirement, it declined to clear those same two names for elevation.
Bhardwaj's request was straightforward: she wanted a copy of the agenda from the December 12 meeting. The Supreme Court's Central Public Information Officer refused. The First Appellate Authority upheld the refusal, arguing that because the subsequent January 10 resolution showed the December decisions were incomplete, no formal resolution had ever been passed. The Central Information Commission agreed, saying the agenda could be inferred from what came after, and that under the Right to Information Act, a document that doesn't formally exist on record cannot be supplied.
The single judge who first heard Bhardwaj's petition adopted this logic wholesale. The Collegium, the judge wrote, is a multi-member body whose decisions live only in formal resolutions—the collective will, the majority view, embodied in signed documents. Since the December 12 issues remained unresolved, in an incomplete state, no formal resolution was ever drawn up. Therefore, there was nothing to give her. The judge also dismissed newspaper reports about what happened as having no evidentiary value.
Bhardwaj appealed to the high court bench, arguing that she had asked for the agenda itself, not a summary or inference of it. But the two-judge bench found no reason to overturn the single judge's order. The decision stands: the December 12, 2018 Collegium meeting remains sealed. What was discussed, who proposed what, which judges were considered—all of it stays behind closed doors, justified by the absence of a final, signed resolution.
The ruling reinforces a particular view of judicial transparency: that the Collegium's internal workings are not public business, that incomplete deliberations need not be disclosed, and that the machinery of judge selection can operate in shadow. For anyone seeking to understand how India's judiciary appoints itself, the doors remain firmly shut.
Citações Notáveis
The Collegium is a multi-member body whose decisions stand embodied in resolutions which alone represent the collective decision taken or the majoritarian view which prevailed— Single judge's order, upheld by Delhi High Court
Justice Madan Lokur expressed disappointment that the December 12, 2018 Collegium resolution was not uploaded on the Supreme Court website— Justice Lokur, in January 2019 interview
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did Bhardwaj care so much about one meeting from 2018?
Because she could see the seams. Justice Lokur said the resolution should have been public. Gogoi's book revealed names. Then those names disappeared from the next Collegium decision. Something had shifted, and nobody was explaining why.
But the courts said there was no resolution to disclose. Doesn't that settle it?
It settles it legally. But it also means the Collegium can hold meetings, make decisions, have them leak, reverse them, and never have to account for any of it—because if the decision doesn't survive, the meeting never officially happened.
Is that how the law actually works, or is that how the courts interpreted it?
The courts interpreted it. They could have said: the agenda exists, the discussions happened, here's what was on the table. Instead they said: without a final resolution, there's no material to disclose. It's a choice about what counts as real.
What does this mean for future transparency requests?
It signals that the Collegium's internal process is off-limits. You can't get at the deliberations, the proposals, the reasoning—only the final decision, if one survives. And if a decision gets reversed, you get nothing.
Did Bhardwaj have any allies in this?
Justice Lokur seemed to think the resolution should have been public. But he was retired by then. The sitting judges sided with institutional secrecy.
What's the larger story here?
It's about whether the machinery that selects judges operates in public view or in private. The courts chose private. The Collegium remains opaque.