Context

• In societies seeking swift progress, the temptation to find a scapegoat for structural failures is strong and in contemporary India, this tendency has found its latest target in the judiciary.
• For many within the ruling establishment, the courts have become convenient symbols of inefficiency and obstruction, institutions that supposedly stand in the way of India’s ambitions to become a Viksit Bharat, or developed nation.
• Yet, this narrative, often repeated by influential policymakers, distorts the judiciary’s role within a constitutional democracy and misdiagnoses the deeper causes of India’s developmental challenges.

Blaming the Judiciary: A Convenient Narrative

• Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, recently described the judicial system as the single biggest hurdle to India’s progress.
• His claim, made at the Nyaya Nirman conference, is emblematic of a broader rhetoric that simplifies complex governance issues into a tale of judicial obstruction.
• While Sanyal’s call for introspection within the justice system is not entirely misplaced, his critique rests on sweeping generalisations that ignore the judiciary’s structural constraints and the government’s own complicity in creating them.

Flawed Criticisms and Misplaced Blame

• Sanyal’s argument falters at several points. For instance, his reference to the failure of pre-suit mediations under Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 misattributes legislative inefficacy to judicial enforcement.
• The provision mandating mediation was not devised by the courts but enacted by Parliament; judges merely apply what legislators enact.
• Blaming the judiciary for the shortcomings of poorly drafted laws obscures the real issue: the persistent problem of imprecise and reactive law-making in India.
• Similarly, Sanyal’s so-called 99-to-1 problem, that regulations are overcomplicated to prevent misuse by a minority, misunderstands the source of legal complexity.
• The judiciary does not create this problem; rather, it inherits it from a legislative process prone to overregulation and vagueness.
• The courts often serve as the last line of defence when ambiguous laws collide with administrative arbitrariness.

The Government as the Largest Litigant and Myths About Workload and Vacations

• The Government as the Largest Litigant
  • The inefficiency of India’s justice system cannot be analysed in isolation from the behaviour of its largest litigant, the government itself.
  • Union and State authorities frequently clog court dockets with frivolous or avoidable litigation.
  • Ministries pursue appeals against routine orders, tax departments challenge minor decisions, and public enterprises engage in contractual disputes that could easily be resolved administratively.
  • Ordinary citizens, teachers, pensioners, and public servants, are compelled to litigate for basic entitlements that should be delivered as a matter of course.
  • The resulting backlog is less a failure of judicial lethargy than a reflection of bureaucratic irresponsibility and the absence of litigation discipline within government machinery.
• Myths About Workload and Vacations
  • Another popular misconception concerns the supposed indolence of judges. Critics often cite short court hours and long vacations as evidence of inefficiency.
  • This perception, however, ignores the invisible labour that underpins judicial work.
  • Judges routinely hear between 50 to 100 cases a day, requiring extensive preparation, research, and deliberation outside formal court hours.
  • Vacations, far from being leisure periods, often serve as time to write reserved judgments and manage pending caseloads.
  • Considering the crushing volume of cases and persistent vacancies, Indian judges work under some of the most demanding conditions in the world.

Broader Problems Faced by Indian Judiciary

• Structural Flaws in Law-Making
  • Much of the burden on the judiciary arises not from inefficiency but from legislative and administrative incoherence.
  • Recent criminal law reforms, which merely rebranded colonial-era codes as sanhitas without substantive innovation, exemplify the government’s penchant for cosmetic change.
  • Likewise, the proposed Income-Tax Act of 2025, marketed as a simplification effort, merely substitutes one set of technical ambiguities for another.
  • Replacing legally entrenched terms like notwithstanding with irrespective may appear modern, but it generates fresh uncertainty and invites new rounds of litigation.
  • Such instances reveal that the roots of legal confusion lie in imprecise drafting, not in judicial interpretation.
• The Real Crisis: Under-Resourced Courts
  • Acknowledging the judiciary’s limitations is essential, but criticism must be grounded in reality.
  • Judicial delays are undeniable, yet they stem from chronic underfunding, outdated infrastructure, and inadequate staffing, issues squarely within the executive’s control.
  • Vacancies in the lower judiciary, where most citizens encounter the justice system, remain alarmingly high.
  • These courts bear the brunt of procedural inefficiency, operating with minimal resources while shouldering an overwhelming share of India’s litigation load. Reform, therefore, must begin with capacity building, not vilification.

Conclusion

• The narrative that India’s judiciary is the single biggest hurdle to development is both misleading and dangerous.
• It diverts attention from the deeper structural flaws in governance, legislation, and administration.
• The courts are imperfect, yes, but they mirror rather than create the inefficiencies that plague India’s institutions.