Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday asserted that he respects the Supreme Court collegium system but the ministry would not act as a post office and will exercise its role as a stakeholder.

Prasad was delivering the concluding speech during the Prof. N.R. Madhava Menon Memorial Lecture Series organized by Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad on 'Legal & Digital Challenges for India Post Covid'.

Talking about the issue of the entry of all devotees to the Sabarimala Temple, the law minister said Prof. Menon took a very tough stand on Sabarimala.

"He (Menon) said courts should be reluctant to interfere with the faith of people. If the faith is obnoxious, arbitrary, patently unconstitutional, it should go... But if you start being judgemental on faith and that too at the instance of people who have no connection whatsoever with faith, then you are treading upon roads slippery," Prasad said.

He said Prof Menon was very firm that the collegium system is no more relevant and needs to be replaced as it has outlived its utility.

"We all know that the NDA government came up with the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) for appointment of judges. It was unanimously passed by both houses of parliament and more than 50 per cent of Vidhan Sabhas. Yet the Supreme Court quashed it.

"We respect the SC judgement but one thing I would like to flag and debate about it. The SC has held that in the judicial commission, the law minister is also a member, therefore the appointees from that process may not be fair and objective when litigation comes against the government. But if this is the reasoning then I have serious reservations as a student of law which I have said in the past," Prasad said.