The Judiciary in the Crosshairs, Unpacking the Flawed Narrative of Courts as India’s Development Roadblock
In the complex and often fraught journey of national development, societies frequently seek a singular, identifiable obstacle to blame for stalled progress. In contemporary India, a powerful and growing narrative within the ruling establishment has cast the judiciary in this unenviable role of the scapegoat. The courts, once revered as temples of justice, are increasingly portrayed by public policy advisers and economic strategists as obstructions—deliberate speed bumps on the nation’s fast lane to economic prosperity. This critique, however, often crumbles under scrutiny, revealing itself as a misdiagnosis that ignores the deeper, systemic failures plaguing the Indian state. The debate is not about whether the judiciary needs reform—it desperately does—but about correctly identifying the source of the ailment and resisting the temptation to blame the doctor for the disease.
The most recent and prominent articulation of this anti-judiciary sentiment came from Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council. Speaking at the Nyaya Nirman conference, Sanyal declared the judicial system the “single biggest hurdle” to India’s ambition of becoming a developed nation, or ‘Viksit Bharat’, within the next two decades. His comments, laden with familiar tropes about judges working short hours and enjoying extended vacations, reduce a multifaceted institutional crisis to a simplistic caricature. While his call to move beyond self-congratulation is justifiable, the solution he implicitly offers—vague censure based on misinformation—is not only unhelpful but dangerously counterproductive. It distorts the judiciary’s constitutional role and lets the other pillars of democracy—the executive and the legislature—off the hook for their own profound failures.
Deconstructing the “Single Biggest Hurdle” Thesis
To brand the judiciary’s imperfections as the primary impediment to growth is a gross oversimplification of India’s democratic machinery. The Indian judicial system is indeed overstretched, under-resourced, and groaning under the weight of over 50 million pending cases. But to frame this as a self-contained problem originating within the courts is to ignore the reality that the judiciary often merely mirrors the dysfunctions that pervade the rest of the government. It is the endpoint where legislative vagueness and executive overreach culminate in legal disputes.
A closer examination of Sanyal’s own examples reveals the weakness of his argument. He criticizes the enforcement of Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, which mandates pre-litigation mediation. He points to high failure rates of these mediations in Mumbai as evidence of the courts imposing an “ineffective procedure.” This critique, however, fundamentally misattributes responsibility. Section 12A was not a judicial invention; it was a provision written and enacted by Parliament. Judges are constitutionally bound to enforce the laws that legislators create. If the mediation framework is poorly designed, lacks teeth, or is unsuited to the commercial disputes it aims to resolve, the failure lies squarely with the law’s drafters in the legislature, not with the judges who are duty-bound to apply it.
Sanyal further invokes a concept he calls the “99-to-1 problem.” He argues that most of India’s regulations are drafted to guard against abuse by a tiny, hypothetical 1% of malicious actors. This, he claims, complicates life for the law-abiding 99%, creating a regulatory spiral that clogs the courts. While his description of India’s byzantine regulatory environment is accurate, his diagnosis of its cause is, once again, misplaced. The “99-to-1 problem” is not a judicial creation; it is a classic malaise of Indian law-making. It stems from a legislative and bureaucratic culture that prioritizes control and discretion over clarity and predictability. The judiciary is left to untangle the mess created by imprecise drafting, a task it is forced to undertake because the laws, as written, are incapable of resolving the disputes they generate.
The Elephant in the Courtroom: The Government as the Biggest Litigant
Perhaps the most glaring omission in the critique of judicial delays is the role of the government itself. The Union and State governments are, by a vast margin, the largest litigants in the country. Their litigation practices are a primary driver of case backlogs, yet they face little accountability for this.
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Frivolous and Strategic Appeals: Tax authorities routinely file appeals against unfavorable orders as a matter of standard procedure, regardless of the merit of the case, dragging disputes through multiple tiers of the judiciary. This is often a strategic move to delay financial liability or wear down the opposing party.
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Contractual Disputes: Government ministries and public sector undertakings frequently engage in protracted legal battles over straightforward contractual obligations they ought to honor. Tender documents are often riddled with arbitrary conditions, and legal rights are treated as discretionary favors rather than enforceable entitlements.
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Litigation Against Citizens: Ordinary citizens—pensioners, teachers, public employees—are routinely forced to approach the courts to secure simple benefits and salaries that are rightfully theirs. The state’s failure to administer its own schemes and payrolls efficiently generates a massive volume of avoidable litigation.
If efficiency is the true concern, then the most impactful reform would be for the government to discipline its own litigation policy. A directive to avoid appealing every minor loss, to honor contracts in a timely manner, and to settle employee disputes administratively would instantly unclog the courts. The silence of critics like Sanyal on this issue is deafening and suggests that the goal is not so much judicial reform as it is a judiciary that is less inclined to scrutinize government action.
Beyond the Bench: The Reality of a Judge’s Work
The critique of court working hours and vacations is a populist but deeply flawed line of attack. The visible part of a judge’s work—the court sitting—is merely the tip of the iceberg. A Supreme Court judge may sit from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., but during that window, they might hear submissions in 50 to 100 cases. The real work of judging—reading voluminous case briefs, researching legal principles, deliberating with colleagues, and drafting reasoned judgments—happens outside the courtroom. This is cerebral, demanding labor that takes place in the early morning, late at night, and across weekends.
The concept of “vacations” is similarly misunderstood. While their colonial origins make them an easy target, the reality is that vacation benches continue to function, hearing urgent matters. Furthermore, these periods are crucial for judges to complete the monumental task of writing “reserved judgments”—the detailed orders that explain their reasoning. With judges facing one of the heaviest caseloads in the world, compounded by persistently high vacancy rates, denying them structured time for this essential, non-public work would severely compromise the quality of justice. Rushing judgments to meet artificial speed targets would be a far greater threat to development than a scheduled break.
The Legislative Onslaught: How Poor Law-Making Fuels Litigation
The judiciary’s burden is directly inflated by the quality of laws passed by the legislature. Much of contemporary law-making appears designed for political optics rather than legal clarity, creating a perpetual cycle of litigation.
The recent overhaul of India’s criminal laws is a prime example. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and related statutes were touted as a decolonizing revolution. In reality, they largely recycled the framework of the Indian Penal Code, often merely renaming old offenses and converting the code into a “sanhita.” This rebranding exercise forces judges and lawyers to grapple with decades of established legal precedent, now applying it to newly labeled sections, inevitably leading to confusion and fresh litigation as the courts reinterpret the “new” laws.
The forthcoming new Income-Tax Act is another case study in missed opportunity. Promoted as a simplification, a reading of its provisions suggests it is largely “old wine in a new bottle.” Complex explanations, exceptions, and provisos have been shuffled around, often inserted as new sections rather than eliminated. In a particularly telling change, the legally significant word “notwithstanding”—a term with a deep jurisprudential history—has been replaced in many places with “irrespective.” This does nothing to clarify the law for the common taxpayer; it simply swaps one piece of legal jargon for another, potentially creating a new wave of disputes over interpretive meaning.
The Ground Zero of Justice: The Crumbling Lower Judiciary
The pressures of a dysfunctional system are felt most acutely not in the Supreme Court or the High Courts, but in the district courts where most Indians encounter the justice system. It is here that the crushing caseload, inadequate infrastructure, and severe vacancies create insurmountable delays for the common person seeking redressal for a property dispute, a marital matter, or a petty crime. Politically convenient critiques focused on Supreme Court vacations entirely miss this ground reality. The justice delivered—or delayed—in these trial courts is the justice that shapes public trust in the rule of law. Reforms that do not trickle down to this level are merely cosmetic.
Conclusion: Justice, Not Just Speed
India’s constitutional democracy was never designed for speed alone. Its foundational architecture includes independent courts precisely to act as a check on majoritarian impulses and executive excess. A judiciary that is pressured to clear dockets quickly, without applying due scrutiny, becomes a rubber stamp, undermining the very rule of law that is a prerequisite for sustainable economic development. Investors are attracted by predictability and enforceable contracts, not by a judicial system that prioritizes government-friendly outcomes over legal principle.
The Indian judiciary is not flawless. It needs more judges, better case management systems, digital infrastructure, and robust internal accountability mechanisms. However, lampooning it as the “biggest hurdle” to development, based on superficial critiques and a willful ignorance of the government’s own role in creating the crisis, only clouds the debate. It is a politically convenient distraction that allows the executive and legislature to deflect from their failures. True judicial reform requires a holistic approach—one that demands discipline from the government as a litigant, precision from Parliament as a law-maker, and provides resources to the courts as a dispenser of justice. To weaken the judiciary through distorted criticism is to chip away at the foundation of what a truly “Viksit Bharat” ought to mean.
Q&A: The Judiciary and India’s Development Debate
1. What is the core of Sanjeev Sanyal’s criticism of the Indian judiciary, and why is it considered a misdiagnosis?
Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the PM’s Economic Advisory Council, has labeled the judiciary as the “single biggest hurdle” to India’s development. His critique focuses on judicial delays, perceived short working hours, long vacations, and the enforcement of laws like mandatory mediation. This is considered a misdiagnosis because it blames the judiciary for problems that originate elsewhere. The courts are often dealing with the consequences of poorly drafted laws by Parliament, frivolous litigation initiated by the government itself, and a regulatory environment designed for control rather than clarity. Blaming the judiciary lets the executive and legislature off the hook for their fundamental failures in governance and law-making.
2. How does the government’s role as the “biggest litigant” contribute to judicial delays?
The Union and State governments are the largest litigants in India, and their litigation practices are a major cause of case backlogs. This includes:
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Frivolous Appeals: Tax and other departments automatically appeal unfavorable rulings, regardless of merit, to delay liability.
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Fighting Honorable Contracts: Government entities frequently engage in long legal battles over clear contractual obligations instead of honoring them.
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Litigating Against Its Own People: Pensioners, employees, and teachers must often sue the government to receive their rightful dues and benefits.
This massive volume of often-avoidable litigation consumes a disproportionate share of judicial time and resources.
3. The article defends judicial “vacations.” What is the reasoning behind this defense?
The defense of judicial vacations is based on a misunderstanding of what judges do outside the courtroom. The “vacation” period is not purely a break; it is crucial time dedicated to writing “reserved judgments.” This is the intellectually demanding work of researching, deliberating, and drafting the detailed reasoning behind court orders. Given the immense caseload and the complexity of issues, judges require uninterrupted time for this essential task. Furthermore, “vacation benches” still operate during these periods to hear urgent matters. Denying judges this structured time would compromise the quality and thoroughness of their judgments, doing more harm than good to the cause of justice.
4. How do recently passed laws, like the new criminal codes, actually add to the judiciary’s burden?
Laws that are rushed, poorly drafted, or merely cosmetic rebranding exercises create new legal uncertainty and generate fresh litigation. The new criminal laws (Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, etc.), for instance, largely repackage the old Indian Penal Code with new names for offenses. This forces judges and lawyers to re-interpret decades of legal precedent under new section numbers, leading to confusion and inevitable disputes. Instead of simplifying the legal landscape, such reforms complicate it, ensuring that the courts will be busy for years deciphering the legislature’s intent and applying old principles to new terminology.
5. If not the judiciary, where should the focus of reform be to speed up justice and aid development?
True reform requires a multi-pronged approach that addresses the root causes of judicial overload:
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Legislative Responsibility: Parliament must draft clear, precise, and constitutional laws designed to minimize litigation, not to create it.
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Executive Discipline: The government must adopt a disciplined litigation policy, avoiding frivolous appeals and honoring contracts and its obligations to citizens without needing a court order.
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Systemic Investment: Massive investment is needed to fill judicial vacancies, modernize court infrastructure, and digitize processes, particularly in the overburdened lower judiciary.
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Alternative Mechanisms: Promote and strengthen genuine alternative dispute resolution mechanisms like arbitration and mediation.
The focus should shift from blaming the judiciary for delays to empowering it with better laws, a more responsible government litigant, and the resources needed to function effectively.
