What Ails the System?

In 1985, addressing the bench and the bar on Law Day, Chief Justice P.N. Bhagwati declared: “the judicial system in the country is almost on the verge of collapse.” The “weight of arrears”, the hopelessness-inducing delays, the gamble that is litigation, the incapacity of the subordinate judiciary to attract talent, the lack of training for judicial officers, the paucity of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and, as Justice Bhagwati emphasised in his 1986 Law Day Speech, unfilled judicial vacancies, were indications of the breakdown of the judicial system, and represented the causes. Some of these have since seen change. There is a National Judicial Academy in Bhopal with the specific mandate of training judicial officers, and there are judicial academies attached to many High Courts. Alternative Dispute Resolution has come centrestage, acquiring an acronym (ADR) that has swiftly gained renown. Judicial vacancies are not as severe as they were in 1985-86. But the arrears, delays, expense, especially, are still symptoms of a structural and systemic malaise.

In the setting, Mr Nariman’s essay, which sets out to interrogate whether the Indian judicial system can be saved, is an interesting commonsensical exploration.

The essay takes off to a stuttering start, with a sketchy statement of the history of law from ancient times to the Constitution and beyond. The generalisations veer towards inaccuracy, making one wonder what impelled Mr Nariman to meander through this territory