Daily Current Affairs

The workings of the Supreme Court collegium (GS Paper 2, Judiciary)

Context:

• The Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana’s tenure is drawing to an end in a few days. The Ramana Collegium has been particularly successful.
• The collegium, as a united front, was able to recommend numerous judicial appointments and scripted history by getting nine Supreme Court judges appointed in one go. Of the nine, Justice B.V. Nagarathna, is in line to be the first woman CJI in 2027.

What exactly is the collegium system?

• The collegium system was born out of years of friction between the judiciary and the executive. The hostility was further accentuated by instances of court-packing (the practice of changing the composition of judges in a court), mass transfer of high court judges and two supersessions to the office of the CJI in the 1970s.
• The Three Judges cases saw the evolution of the collegium system. In the First Judges case, the court held that the consultation with the CJI should be “full and effective
• The Second Judges case introduced the collegium system in 1993. It ruled that the CJI would have to consult a collegium of his two senior-most judges in the apex court on judicial appointments. The court held that such a “collective opinion” of the collegium would have primacy over the government.
• It was the Third Judges case in 1998, which was a Presidential reference, that expanded the judicial collegium to its present composition of the CJI and four of his senior-most judges.

 

How does the collegium system work?

• The collegium of the CJI and four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court make recommendations for appointments to the apex court and High Courts. The collegium can veto the government if the names are sent back by the latter for reconsideration.
• The basic tenet behind the collegium system is that the judiciary should have primacy over the government in matters of appointments and transfers in order to remain independent. However, over time, the collegium system has attracted criticism, even from within the judicial institution, for its lack of transparency.
• It has even been accused of nepotism. The government’s efforts to amend the Constitution and bring a National Judicial Appointments Commission was struck down by a Constitution Bench.

 

How are judicial appointments to the Supreme Court made?

• The appointment of the CJI and judges of the apex court is governed by a Memorandum of Procedure. The CJI and the judges of the Supreme Court are appointed by the President under clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution.
• The appointment to the office of the CJI should be of the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court considered fit to hold the office.
• The Union Law Minister would, at an “appropriate time”, seek the recommendation of the outgoing CJI on his successor. Once the CJI recommends, the Law Minister forwards the communication to the Prime Minister who would advise the President on the appointment.

 

Appointment of Supreme Court judge:

• In the case of an appointment of a Supreme Court judge, when a vacancy is expected to arise in the apex court, the collegium would recommend a candidate to the Union Law Minister.
• The CJI would also ascertain the views of the senior-most judges in the Supreme Court, who hail from the High Court from where the person recommended comes from.
• The opinions of each member of the Collegium and other judges consulted should be made in writing and form part of the file on the candidate sent to the government.
• If the CJI had consulted non-judges, he should make a memorandum containing the substance of consultation, which would also be part of the file. After the receipt of the Collegium recommendation, the Law Minister would forward it to the Prime Minister, who would advise the President in the matter of appointment.

 

Has the increase in judicial appointments lowered pendency in the Supreme Court?

• The increase in the number of judges has not guaranteed lower pendency of cases in the apex court over the years. The number of pending cases has risen to 71,411 as on August 1, 2022 from a little over 55,000 in 2017.
• This is despite the fact that the sanctioned judicial strength of the court was increased to 34 judges in August 2019. A steady rise in arrears regardless of the periodic increase in judicial strength has been a constant phenomenon since 1950.
• In 1950, the Supreme Court had eight judges and a pendency of 100-plus cases.
• A decade later, in 1960, the judges’ strength in the Supreme Court grew to 14 while pendency rose to 3,247. In 1978, the number of apex court judges was 18 and pendency had crossed the 14,000-mark.
• In 1986, there were 26 judges in the Supreme Court while pendency increased to 27,881.
• In 2009, the number of judges in the Supreme Court reached 31 though pendency went beyond 50,000.
• In 2014, the number of judges remained 31 but pendency had burgeoned to over 64,000. In 2020 and 2021, the pandemic added to the pendency rate in the apex court.
•  The year 2020 ended with a backlog of 64,426 cases and 2021 with 69,855 cases.

 

Current status:

• The court currently has 31 working judges. Four serving judges, including Chief Justice Ramana, would retire in the next few months. His successor Justice U.U. Lalit, is scheduled to retire in November 8, with hardly a three-month tenure as top judge.
• Justice D.Y. Chandrachud is in line as per the seniority norm to be the 50th CJI Chief Justice in November. The problems of arrears and vacancies in the apex court may likely fall on his shoulders in a year of churn.

 

The Great Barrier Reef’s recovery and vulnerability

(GS Paper 3, Environment)

Why in news?

• The highest levels of coral cover, within the past 36 years, has been recorded in the northern and central parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR), according to the annual long-term monitoring report by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).
• The report have warned, however, that this could be quickly reversed owing to rising global temperatures.
• This came after the reef experienced a mass coral bleaching event in March 2022.

 

What are coral reefs?

• Corals are marine invertebrates or animals which do not possess a spine. They are the largest living structures on the planet. Each coral is called a polyp and thousands of such polyps live together to form a colony, which grow when polyps multiply to make copies of themselves.
• Corals are of two types: hard corals and soft corals. Hard corals extract calcium carbonate from seawater to build hard, white coral exoskeletons.
• Hard corals are in a way the engineers of reef ecosystems and measuring the extent of hard coral is a widely-accepted metric for measuring the condition of coral reefs. Soft corals attach themselves to such skeletons and older skeletons built by their ancestors.
• Soft corals also add their own skeletons to the hard structure over the years. These growing multiplying structures gradually form coral reefs.

 

Great Barrier Reef:

• Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest reef system stretching across 2,300 km and having nearly 3,000 individual reefs. It hosts 400 different types of coral, gives shelter to 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusc.
• Coral reefs support over 25% of marine biodiversity even as they take up only 1% of the seafloor. The marine life supported by reefs further fuels global fishing industries.
• Besides, coral reef systems generate $2.7 trillion in annual economic value through goods and service trade and tourism.
• In Australia, the Barrier Reef, in pre-COVID times, generated $4.6 billion annually through tourism and employed over 60,000 people including divers and guides.

 

What does the new report say?

• The annual long-term monitoring by AIMS began 36 years ago, and reefs are surveyed through in-water and aerial techniques. The current report surveyed 87 reefs in the GBR between August 2021 and May 2022.
• The report states that reef systems are resilient and capable of recovering after disturbances such as accumulated heat stress, cyclones, predatory attacks and so on, provided the frequency of such disturbances is low.

 

Key Findings:

• The new survey shows record levels of region-wide coral cover in the northern and central GBR since the first ever AIMS survey was done. Coral cover is measured by determining the increase in the cover of hard corals.
• The hard coral cover in northern GBR had reached 36% while that in the central region had reached 33%. Meanwhile, coral cover levels declined in the southern region from 38% in 2021 to 34% in 2022.
• The record levels of recovery were fuelled largely by increases in the fast-growing Acropora corals, which are a dominant type in the GBR. Incidentally, these fast growing corals are also the most susceptible to environmental pressures such as rising temperatures, cyclones, pollution, crown-of-thorn starfish (COTs) attacks which prey on hard corals and so on.
• Also, behind the recent recovery in parts of the reef, are the low levels of acute stressors in the past 12 months;  no tropical cyclones, lesser heat stress in 2020 and 2022 as opposed to 2016 and 2017, and a decrease in COTs outbreaks.

 

Does this mean the reef is out of the woods?

• Besides predatory attacks and tropical cyclones, scientists say that the biggest threat to the health of the reef is climate change-induced heat stress, resulting in coral bleaching.
• Corals share a symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae called zooxanthellae. The algae prepares food for corals through photosynthesis and also gives them their vibrant colouration.
• When exposed to conditions like heat stress, pollution, or high levels of ocean acidity, the zooxanthellae start producing reactive oxygen species not beneficial to the corals.
• So, the corals kick out the colour-giving algae from their polyps, exposing their pale white exoskeleton and leading to coral starvation as corals cannot produce their own food.
• Bleached corals can survive depending on the levels of bleaching and the recovery of sea temperatures to normal levels. Severe bleaching and prolonged stress in the external environment can lead to coral death.

 

Rise in temperature:

• Over the last couple of decades, climate change-induced rise in temperature has made seas warmer than usual. Under all positive outlooks and projections in terms of cutting greenhouse gases, sea temperatures are predicted to increase by 1.5°C to 2°C by the time the century nears its end.
• According to the UN assessment in 2021, the world is going to experience heating at 1.5°C in the next decade, the temperature at which bleaching becomes more frequent and recovery less impactful.
• The concern is that in the past decade, mass bleaching events have become more closely spaced in time. The first mass bleaching event occurred in 1998 when the El Niño weather pattern caused sea surfaces to heat, causing 8% of the world’s coral to die. The second event took place in 2002.
• But the longest and most damaging bleaching event took place from 2014 to 2017. Mass bleaching then occurred again in 2020, followed by earlier this year. According to the Australian government’s scientists, 91% of the reefs it had surveyed in March were affected by bleaching.

 

Way Forward:

• The prognosis for the future disturbance suggests an increase in marine heatwaves that will last longer and the ongoing risk of COTs outbreaks and cyclones.
• Therefore, while the observed recovery offers good news for the overall state of the GBR, there is an increasing concern for its ability to maintain this state.

 

India begins cooperation with Combined Maritime Forces

(GS Paper 2, International Relation)

 

Why in news?

• Recently, India formally commenced cooperation with the Bahrain-based multilateral partnership, Combined Maritime Forces (CMF).
• India joined the US-backed Combined Military Forces-Bahrain (CMF-B), a counterterrorism coalition aimed at protecting international waters as an associate member. 

Background:

• At the India-US 2+2 in April 2022, India had announced that it would join the CMF as an Associate Partner, which will strengthen cooperation in regional security in the Western Indian Ocean.

 

About Combined Maritime Forces (CMF):

• CMF is a multi-national naval partnership to promote security, stability and prosperity across approximately 3.2 million square miles of international waters, which encompass some of the world’s most important shipping lanes.
• Established in 2001 with only 12 members, the coalition,  then called the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF).
• India becomes the 35th member of the maritime partnership that also includes Australia, Bahrain, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
• It is commanded by a U.S. Navy Vice Admiral, who also serves as Commander U.S. Naval Forces CENTCOM and U.S. Fifth Fleet.
• All three commands are co-located at U.S. Naval Support Activity Bahrain. In the immediate neighbourhood, Pakistan is a full member of CMF.

 

Task forces:

• The work of the CMF-B is divided into four combined task forces — the CTF 150, CTF 151, CTF 152, and CTF 153.
• The CTF 150 focuses on ensuring maritime security in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean.
• Participating nations have included Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Spain, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Command of CTF 150 generally rotates between nations on a four-monthly basis. It’s currently being commanded by the Pakistan Navy. 
• CTF 151 focuses on counterpiracy. 
• The CTF 152 aims to ensure maritime security in the Arabian Gulf (also known as Persian Gulf) and is currently being commanded by the Kuwait Navy.
• The CTF 153  which was established in April 2022  focuses on ensuring maritime security in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and is currently being commanded by the US Navy.

 

Way Forward:

• Under this framework, India has in the past cooperated with CMF on various occasions. For instance, the CMF’s CTF 151 has coordinated with Indian and Chinese warships deployed on anti-piracy duties to patrol the Maritime Security Transit Corridor.
• Currently, India has two ships deployed round the clock between the Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf for anti-piracy and anti-smuggling operations.

• Indian Navy has a Liaison Officer posted at the US Central Command (CENTCOM) in Bahrain who will also function as the point person for cooperation with the CMF.

 

Failure of SSLV-D1

(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)

Why in news?

• The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said the satellites onboard its maiden Small Satellite Launch Vehicle “are no longer usable” after the SSLV-D1 placed them in an elliptical orbit instead of a circular one.

 

Details:

• The SSLV was launched carrying two satellites, including an earth observation micro-satellite called EOS-02 from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
• After a successful lift-off and separation of its three stages, the flight deviated from its script.

 

Velocity Trimming Module (VTM):

• The Velocity Trimming Module (VTM), which inserts the satellite into their desired orbits, is being cited as the cause of failure as it did not fire in the terminal stage. The VTM was to fire up for 30 seconds but it was barely ignited for one.
• ISRO while declaring that all stages performed well, had initially hinted at data loss and did not straight away declare the mission a success.
• SSLV-D1 placed the satellites into 356 km x 76 km elliptical orbit instead of 356 km circular orbit.

 

Unstable Orbit:

• An unstable orbit means that the satellite’s performance will be affected and there are chances that it could collide with others or in the worst-case scenario, crash back on the planet.
• This marks the loss of two big satellites, the Earth Observation Satellite (EOS-02) and the AzadiSAT, a CubeSat developed by 750 girl students to mark the 75th year of India's Independence.
• The satellites likely ended up over the Pacific between Australia and New Zealand.

 

What it translates?

• The future of SSLV, ISRO’s answer to the small satellite launch market, also looks grim, as the inaugural flight has not given the desired result. Developed at Rs 169 crore, the launch vehicle was pegged to be ready for flight in just 72 hours and could carry satellites up to 500 kilograms into space.
• This is the second loss for ISRO in the span of just one year, which has had a perfect track record of launching satellites and missions into not just Low Earth orbit (LEO), but also in deep space.
• The unstable delivery comes just months after the successful launch of the PSLV-C53 mission that deployed the Earth Observation Satellite.

 

GSLV-F10 mission:

• ISRO had hit upon another loss in 2021 when its GSLV-F10 mission was lost minutes after liftoff.
• ISRO lost the mission just 297.3 seconds after lift-off to a "technical anomaly", which it later said was due to a deviation in performance of the Cryogenic Upper Stage (CUS) of the launch vehicle.
• Subsequent to lift-off the build-up of pressure in the propellant (Liquid Hydrogen or LH2) tank during the flight was not normal leading to a lower tank pressure at the time of ignition of the engine.
• This led to an insufficient flow of Liquid Hydrogen into the engine thrust chamber and the reduction in LH2 tank pressure was due to a leak in the respective Vent and Relief Valve (VRV), which is used for relieving the excess tank pressure during flight.

 

Way Forward:

• ISRO will set up a committee to review the failure. A committee would analyse and recommend. With the implementation of the recommendations, ISRO will come back soon with SSLV-D2.