New Delhi, Aug. 30 -- Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan on Sunday questioned why the constitutional provision allowing the appointment of a "distinguished jurist" as an apex court judge has remained unused for more than 76 years, suggesting that either the Centre and, later, the collegium had failed to find sufficient depth in Indian legal academia or had simply never seriously explored the possibility.

Addressing the 13th convocation of the National Law University, Delhi's LL.M. programme, the top court judge said that Article 124(3) of the Constitution expressly provides for the appointment of a person who, in the President's opinion, is a "distinguished jurist" as a Supreme Court judge. Yet, he noted, no legal academic has so f...