New Delhi, Oct. 25 -- The collegium may be the Supreme Court's answer to keeping political influence out of judicial appointments, but it has never been insulated from the pressures of the political establishment, former Supreme Court judge Sanjay Kishan Kaul writes in his forthcoming memoir, arguing that the government's lingering resentment over the scrapping of the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) in 2015 has shaped its dealings with the judiciary ever since.

"It is fantasy to imagine that the collegium is isolated from political pressures," Justice Kaul writes in Without Fear or Favour, to be published by Juggernaut Books later this month, offering an account of the appointment process that is as much an indictment of...