New Delhi, Jan 22 : The Supreme Court collegium, through its recent resolutions, has made it crystal clear that every individual is entitled to maintain their own individuality based on sexual orientation, free speech cannot disentitle somebody from judgeship, and being critical of a dispensation will have no bearing on integrity -- which has become a test for the government.

The Central government is aggressively pursuing to have more say in judicial appointments claiming it will infuse transparency in the mechanism.

Against this backdrop, the collegium resolutions bring a new face of judiciary, which may present hard choices for the government: Bring forth concrete reasons for rejecting a candidate for having critical views on government policies does not impinge on integrity; and a candidate's ardent involvement in gay rights would not shut him out of judgeship. The resolutions cover the proposed appointments of advocates Saurabh Kirpal, R. John Sathyan, Somasekhar Sundaresan, Amitesh Banerjee, and Sakya Sen.

The resolutions have shown that the judiciary has no Achilles' heel -- leverage if there was any to be taken has ceased to exist -- rather it wants straight answers from the government, significant in view of the government's hostile pitch against the collegium system.