Challenges to the Indian Judicial System

Corruption:

• The Indian court system is similarly tainted as every other government institution, and there is no system of accountability. Without the consent of the Chief Justice of India, it is not possible to file a FIR against a judge who accepts bribes.

Lack of Transparency:

• The Right to Information Act does not apply to the judicial system.
• The citizens of India are not sufficiently informed about important issues pertaining to the functioning of the Indian judicial system, such as the fairness and accountability of the system.
• Transparency in the appointment of judges is also necessary.
• The Constitution guarantees the right to free speech and expression, which includes the right to know. However, the current system infringes on this fundamental right.

Nepotism:

• The appointment of 1/3 of the 33 judges on the Allahabad High Court’s judge panel was recently questioned because some of them were blood relatives of former or current judges of the Supreme Court of India and the Allahabad High Court.
• This issue occurs primarily due to the “questionable” appointment procedure that concerns the judiciary.

Gap with Society:

• Any nation’s judicial system must be a fundamental component of society, and interactions with that general public must be frequent and pertinent.
• The Indian court system, which was inherited from the British judicial structure, has no relationship with the society and Law enforcement officials are still unable to interact with the general public on a more personal level.

Check: Difference between NCLT and NCLAT

Pending Cases:

• As many as 30 million cases are still backlogged in India’s court system, which has the greatest backlog in the whole world.
• Over four million of them involve the High Court, and 65,000 involve the Supreme Court. The fact that this figure keeps rising and demonstrates the inadequacies of the justice system. 

Undertrials:

• Most inmates in Indian prisons are still awaiting verdicts on their cases and are being held there till that time.
• In the majority of cases, people wind up serving longer terms of time in prison than would have otherwise been imposed on them, and the costs, suffering, and anguish of defending themselves in court are worse than serving the actual sentence.
• The police, on the other hand, can intimidate or silence poor people throughout the legal proceedings when the wealthy and powerful people are on their side.
• The victims are the common or poor people, whereas the wealthy can afford to hire costly lawyers and influence the outcome of legal proceedings in their favour. Additionally, this severely restricts the ability of foreign firms and investors to conduct business in India.

The Indian judiciary is regarded as one of the strongest judiciaries in the entire world. The structure of the Indian judiciary is provided by the Constitution of India, and it also serves as a watchdog of the Indian Constitution and defends fundamental rights.

As India uses the oldest legal system which retains many of the characteristics that the British judicial system left behind. It adheres to the “common law system” of legal jurisdiction; common law is the body of law created by judges and it controls subsequent judgments. 

However, there are some intrinsic issues with our legal and judicial system, which expose its flaws and shortcomings and call for quick adjustments and accountability. There are seven times more judges per 100,000 persons in the USA than in India.

The criminal cases in India would take more than 30 years to resolve and civil cases would never be resolved at the current rate of disposition. Some of the major challenges faced by the Indian Judicial system are: