The Informal Constitution: Unwritten Criteria In Selecting Judges For the Supreme Court Of India, written by Abhinav Chandrachud, is an empirical study of the way judges are appointed in the Supreme Court. There is a set procedure of selecting the Supreme Court judges in the Constitution. However in recent times, three more criteria have been included that have helped result in an unwarranted number of judges. This book revolves around that unwritten criteria of selecting the Supreme Court judges.

As per the Indian Constitution, the Supreme Court is allowed to have one Chief Justice and a maximum of seven judges. But, now there are around thirty judges in addition to the Chief Justice, who are appointed by the procedures mentioned in Constitution. This book talks about those extra unmentioned criteria of age, diversity, and seniority, on the basis of which these extra judges were appointed.

From the year 1950 to 2009, a total of one eighty-nine additional judges were selected. The book constructs a rich debate around the system of hiring judges with an unmentioned procedure. The key content of the book includes cases of some past judges, age of appointment, seniority, and diversity, concluding with an analysis on all of these aspects.

In order to compile this book, the author held several interviews with former judges of the Supreme Court. This is the only book existing around the procedure of appointing judges for Supreme Court, for which twenty-nine former judges were interviewed to collect authentic information. The credibility of the Supreme Court judges has been questioned in the recent years, and the content of this book revolves primarily around that.

The book contains a thorough analysis of the subject and procedures of the unmentioned hiring. Oxford University Press published The Informal Constitution: Unwritten Criteria In Selecting Judges For the Supreme Court Of India in 2014. It is available in hardcover.