Chief Justice of India-designate Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde has said he is not in favour of disclosing the deliberations of the Supreme Court’s collegium on rejection of names for higher judiciary, saying it is not a question of secrecy but the right to privacy.

Justice Bobde, who will become the 47th CJI on November 18 succeeding Justice Ranjan Gogoi, said a conservative approach on the issue of disclosing the entire deliberations of the collegium was necessary as “people’s reputation are at stake” and it cannot be sacrificed just to satisfy the desire of citizens to know.

The statement by Justice Bobde, who was part of a nine-judge Constitution bench which declared right to privacy as a fundamental right, assumes significance in the wake of a growing clamour for more transparency in the functioning of the collegium.

Justice Bobde, 63, also rued the criticism of judges on social media for their judicial actions and said most of the judges, who are not “thick skinned”, get perturbed.

“I still think that we need to be conservative. The reason is that people’s reputation is at stake. We need to be conservative. Half of the complaints which come are not true. I am saying half as a phrase. And I think that the collegium and the court should be conservative in these matters,” he told PTI in an interview on Wednesday.

Justice Bobde was responding to a question on whether any steps are required to make the collegium’s functioning more transparent.