The National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) was a proposed constitutional body and concept intended to replace the existing system for appointing judges to the higher judiciary. Its origin lies in the Constitution (Ninety-Ninth Amendment) Act, 2014, and the parallel National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014, which were passed by Parliament in August 2014 and came into force on April 13, 2015. The NJAC was created to solve the problem of the perceived lack of transparency and accountability in the collegium system, which had been established by the judiciary itself.
The 99th Amendment introduced Article 124A into the Constitution, which defined the NJAC's composition. The Commission was to be a six-member body consisting of the Chief Justice of India (Chairperson), the two senior-most Supreme Court judges, the Union Minister of Law and Justice, and two "eminent persons" nominated by a committee. Article 124B assigned the NJAC the function of recommending appointments for the Chief Justice of India, Supreme Court judges, and High Court judges, as well as recommending transfers. A critical mechanism was the provision that any two members of the NJAC could veto a recommendation.
The NJAC was intended to replace the collegium system, which was a mechanism established by the Supreme Court in cases like Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India (1993). However, the NJAC was struck down on October 16, 2015, by the Supreme Court in the case of Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India. The Court, by a 4:1 majority, declared the 99th Constitutional Amendment Act and the NJAC Act, 2014, unconstitutional and void, holding that they violated the Basic Structure of the Constitution, specifically the independence of the judiciary, by giving the executive a significant role in judicial appointments. This judgment restored the collegium system.