The public sentiment regarding judicial accountability in India is characterized by widespread frustration, disappointment, and urgency for reform. Many individuals express their disillusionment with the current state of the judiciary, citing concerns over corruption, lack of transparency, and inefficiency. There is a strong call for systemic changes to restore integrity and trust in the legal system, with particular emphasis on ensuring that judges are held accountable for their actions.

The Judiciary

Government of India

Legal Practitioners

Lawyer here, can confirm. The number of times I've had to read a judgment of 50+ pages during my internship and college is just staggering. A lot of the times you find contradictions in judgments and as pointed out above, there are absolute tangents that the judges go on that has nothing to do with anything.

Ggwpul

Serious question: Is there a forum/ombudsman body for the judiciary where such issues can be raised? 

Approximately how many such judgements do you see every month?

extrapao

As another practicing advocate, I would like to let you guys know that this is not the case with all judges. There are judges who like to write elaborate judgements maybe because they think there is a need to elucidate their point or because they want to show off. There are comparably equal judges in the higher courts who write crisp and to the point judgements. 

Tldr: Judgements are written in all shapes and sizes. 

_snorlax__

Given that I was judged in exams in high school and college on the thickness of my answer sheet as much if not more as the content, this does not surprise me. We are not laconic. Our Constitution itself is ridiculously verbose. We still hold the record for the longest speech in the UN. It took me a long time to unlearn the verbose way I was taught to write letters, which I carried over to emails. 

I honestly think we should start a non-government, non-profit watchdog for compiling, analyzing and recording everything that the judiciary does. We know almost nothing about our third branch of the Government. 

kolikaal

I believe you're incorrect to say it started after 1970. The problem of nearly 40,000 judgments since 1950, many of which run into hundreds of pages was acknowledged by the SC. [Source](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Supreme-Court-judges-bat-for-succinct-judgments/articleshow/45017501.cms?nltype=&amp;newsletter=)

I think so after 1970's it has reduced to 10 pages long as you say. (Not sure, can you provide a citation)

SC judges have informally come together to accept a hitherto unadmitted yet serious problem — verbose verdicts often create confusion, both for law and litigants. This is just one of the reasons for delay in rendering speedy justice to litigants.

In 2014, CJI Justice HL Dattu, had set up two committees to tackle arrears in both — the SC and HCs. I could not find their reports though. However, the trend in pending cases in decreasing, whilein HC and lower courts it is increasing.

Many SC CJI's have been advocating need to render speedy justice and you can see a report on 'Law's Delays: Arrears In Courts', tabled in Rajya Sabha in 2011 [here](http://164.100.47.5/newcommittee/reports/EnglishCommittees/Committee%20on%20Home%20Affairs/85threport%20.htm)

I've found that there are various measures which are being followed now. Right from Magistrates, to Judges in Lower Courts  to HC  - all of them have a specific number of cases that they need to dispose in certain period of time. Their performance is analysed based on that and their promotions are based on it.

The other reasons delaying speedy justice is 

- The advocates who wantonly drag the cases to favor their litigants and thereby add to the chaos. 

- Many advocates also file private petitions full well knowing that there is no substance to the case and this adds a huge number to the cases.

- Inordinate delay in filling up vacancy of judges - in HC and lower courts, this is the main reason for the rise in pending cases.

- Lack of computerization of the lower courts (where there are the most number of cases!)- this archaic system of writing on papers/typing it out, storing it, retrieving it etc add to delay and also gives rise to corruption and other illegal activities!

- setting up additional fast track courts. I also feel instead of just dividing the lower courts to Civil &amp; Criminal, if more additional courts are setup to just focus on specific cases say for example, a special court to just look on matrimonial cases, inordinate delay andpressure on the magistrates will be reduced significantly.

This is not exhaustive list though. I hope such reforms will ensure speedy and impartial justice to litigants.

modiusoperandi

[deleted]

SCCOnline has tl;dr version inform of case notes. But it can be costly. 

Yes, I absolutely agree with the point about the lengthy judgements. 
I am a law student. Last semester we had two read two judgements Menaka Gandhi and Bachan Singh in our English class. Our teacher told us to treat them not as a judgement but as a piece of literature and analyze. She made us skip most of it, though. Bachan Singh was bearable but Menaka Gandhi was not. It was page after page of useless quotations. It had quotations from Vivekananda, Plato, Chanakya and bazzillion others, just to prove the point that travelling is a part of right to life (art 21) and then there was so much repetitive arguments on why it is not in art 19(1)(g). And man was it anti climactic, they didn't even give her passport back.

Justice Krishna Iyer had way with the words. He wrote beautifully but dude chill, you don't need to prove it to us that you are smart. You are a SC judge, we know you know more than us. I'd quote him from another important judgement of his, Shamsher Singh v State of Punjab 
         Not the Potomac but the Thames fertilises the flow of Yamuna.
 Not ashamed to say that had to Google it to find its meaning and you bet I wrote it in my consti exam. :-) 


I remember one time we were reading a judgement for a moot. It was a Delhi HC judgement. It was a COPRA case on  doctor's negligence and this judge had gone on for pages just stating that doctors are supposed to be miracle workers, they are supposed to do good and if they are negligent, how much loss is caused to a person. And then it was repeated in the part where compensation has to be determined. I can't find the judgement, will link if I do. 

Ps. We were taught how to identify the ratio decidendi in class. But it can be so hard. I read just case notes on SCC and then more if it seems relevant. 



tl;dr I concur with the opinion presented by the OP. And I had nothing much or new to add but still wrote this long ass comment.

This was new my uncle practising in Chhattisgarh HC told me that High court judges take eternity to give judgements as they don't know very good english . He was talking of judges promoted from state judicial services where they mostly gave judgements in Hindi 

Judiciary is one big black box . 

phone_throw12

You know what they say, lawyers are writers who needed a job.

WagwanKenobi

Thanks for sharing. As laypersons, this isn't something that we are aware of. Is there a forum/committee/council where this issue can be addressed? 

White_lilies

randianNo1

The problem is when our Parliament tries to do something about improving court system. The court shut it down. 

I totally believe that judicial appointment bill was really good since I think most high Court judges are corrupt and appoint their kids to power .

dinonia

In addition to what you said, I have noticed something else as well: The dissenting opinions have become much shorter nowadays. In most judgments given in 50s or 60s, the dissenting opinion (if there was any) ran into many pages, often being at least 75% size of the other part of the judgment. In fact, I've come across a few judgments where the dissenting opinion was longer than the binding opinion.

It appears now, though, that judges do not feel the need to 'waste' their time writing long opinions which are not even binding. Perhaps this or some other reasoning, I'm not sure. But I do not agree; dissenting opinions are one of the things that make judgments 'fun' to me - it also ensures that all sides were adequately discussed and argued before the court, and the idea finds a mention there. In fact, recently a nine-judge bench upheld a dissenting opinion given by Justice Sinha several decades ago! I like to believe that dissents hold ideas, very strong ideas, right AND wrong, all essential for a society.

But of course, that's my observation and belief.

patanahi

dhakkarnia

As much as I love Katju, his judgements are filled with a *lot* of rhetoric and analogy.

RagiModi

Doctors, auditors and lawyers. They don't tend to keep things simple. 

lungiwarrior

I don't understand. Can you make us understand with an example?

National Award Winner for "Best Feature Film" 2015  [COURT (Movie)] (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3717068/)

rajesh8162

This is why need automation to happen in India.


iamaguythrowaway

Can confirm. I am a stenographer in some court.

musiczlife

India mein shuru se problem hai bhai. we were asked to write a 2 page answer for a 6 mark question, 1 page answer for 4 mark question, half page for 2 mark ques. 

Content gaya tel lene. I was the "fuck the rules" kid who wrote brief few sentence answers for all questions. I obviously was a "poor student".

When the "good students" grow up into being SC/HC judges, they continue doing what they were asked to do. 


karmanye

Remember reading about the judgement in the Aarushi case from the Ghaziabad court judge in Avirook Sen's book Aarushi. Author deduces that he started writing the judgement even before the arguments were complete.

paritan

when my gas cylinder got stolen i had to wait for 2 years for my cylinder.
i had to lie in order to save my future time.. i was witness and i had to deny.
time wasted 2 years=cylinder price=3000rs only.
travel expense=500bucks?
police man asked for bribe=500rs

Conclusion:WTF? 

Metromask1

This is so on point. The excessive verbosity in most of these judgments is an issue for sure.

LadaakuVimaan

Yup, you are absolutely right. I, too, recently happen to come across a judgment of Supreme Court of India, in which, first 50 pages tried to validate the actual judgment delivered in last two pages. There is one more thing that I would like to add and that is reconciliation of earlier judgments in similar cases.  

Quosher

While for the ease of working, my fellow advocated, you can use provakil - available on Android,iOS and web

That last page is the order which is basically the meat of the judgement because it enumerates the sentencing and other stipulations like parole and whether it is a rigorous or simple imprisonment and whether the convict is allowed remissions and other perks under the terms of the sentence.

But yeah, I've seen fifty plus page judgements for simple theft of Chinese mobile where the value of stolen goods is less than Rs. 800. 

evequest

Off topic - I think the Marathi movie 'court' depicted the state of Indian judiciary quite well, it's a good movie, available on Netflix.

typical_randian_says

Slash their budget for stationery. That'll stop them from writing longer judgements.

eva01beast

Being a student in one of the topmost law universities in the country, I find basis in all of the points raised by the OP. The situation is particularly damning when you consider the judgments of some judges making shameless use of tools like thesaurus. *cough* *deepakmishra* *cough*

prataprajput

Very nice ti know. Thanks for bringing this up

rahulkaid

I would recommend to ask this question to Markandey Katju, however he seems to be not active in social media since a while now. However you can try mailing him.

annyarun

Here's a Caravan piece on what you're talking about, OP.

http://www.caravanmagazine.in/perspectives/critical-judgment-courts-vague-prose



shadowbannedguy1

Most judgements are actually written by researchers working under judges of supreme court, know this because my friend is a researcher. Judgements are long because judges pass orders giving reasons for accepting or ignoring argument  presented by the defendant and respondents.Mostly they follow IRAC procedure when writing the judgement. Our judicial system do sucks but its not because of the incumbents but because of our law makers. Also its our advocates who are hell bent on taking cases to court rather then focusing on arbitration between the parties concerned.

yokomotive

Now read Sandra Day O'Connor's dissent in the Land Snatching case.   

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/545/469/dissent.html  

Or Antonin Scalia's concurring opinion on allowing sale of violent video games due to the 1st Amendment.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-1448.ZO.html

Crisp &amp; clear enough for a layman like me to understand.   


off topic question: Are judges in India also corrupt ? do they take bribe?

I never saw any judge getting punished for some crime, is it so? 

micropanda

&gt; every single one of them started writing longer judgments, fluffing them up with completely useless content

I do that all the time for my university exams. Just write 2-3 page long answers and voila ! The more the page, the more the marks.

You should be able to "peruse" a ten page judgement very quickly to find the stare decisis. If you want obiter, look for it.

Byxit

What do you think about lower courts ? Do you know in tier 2 and 3 citys and towns there is huge ring of judges police and lawyers who try to profit from innocent people.

hd-86

Too long a post, dude. Can you summarize?

DarthSimian

Don't courts publish a judgement and a separate 'opinions' of the court judges ? The judgement should be succinct while the opinion can be of a rambling nature but it is not mandatory to read it to understand the judgement ?


Why isnt there an organization that hires lawyers to go through judgements and write relevant summary papers? They can then sell the papers to lawyers and judges. [Initially, they can do this on a made-to-order basis, later on, once enough traction is present, they can summarize most judgements and give out a subscription model]. 

Given the cost of a lawyer's hours, they can charge huge sums and still attract heavy traffic.

And sometimes that is 30% of times, the cases if they are dealing with tax will ascertain questions of say lease or something else or if the case is arbitration then the Judge will spend more than half of the case discussing matters of competition or a critique of something. Like dude get on with it. Clear, precise judgements please!

Munchkinnotmunching

Thanks to the OP for his detailed account.

That said, for all these flaws the nature of our administrative and political system is such that there are good reasons why people still trust the judiciary above everything else.

swacchreddit

Quick delivery of justice is sine qua non for efficient jurisprudence.

briefsbandit

I suggest writing the judgements like research papers.

First, an abstract : Tell me what is it about in the most crisp and formal manner.

Then, put the main meat of the judgement : All the technicalities, circumstances and stuff related to the case with respective diagrams.

At the end, the conclusion : what judgement did you eventually deliver for the case, and how do you wish it be interpreted if presented in future cases.

Now that I'm writing this comment, I realise that it's a pretty shitty idea and judgements certainly don't work like that, but hey, it's r/india; yaha nahi toh kaha

yculcarneee

Kesavananda Bharati. Still have nightmares about that.

6732402

It's common law syndrome, everyone wants to be the Maverick that changes the law and get quoted in the textbooks after getting invited to all the dinners. 

While there's good common law judges, and even some of the long winded ones are excellent, but as well as making cases 50 pages long by rehashing what the leading judgement says, the length of judgements can lad to some serious mental gymnastics.  I know it's wrong to be butthurt about a case 20 years on, but bruton (english court saying a proprietary right that didn't exist could be passed) was an example of that. 

redpossum

Respected Seniors, I am a second-year law student and seeking your guidance on a query regarding court procedure. What does it mean when a judge instructs an advocate to ‘get instructions’?

Does that mean getting order or notice from a concerned person or authority ?

Unable_Pea3922

So basically judges need to : 

`jury@SupremeCourt $ pass-judgement  --verbose = False`

stochastic_zeitgeist

Only a "not a lawyer" person would dare ask this question 😂

Kuch likh denge viral hojayega fir laude lag jayenge

KelaAkela

Pretty common in Trial Courts, even in HC. The only thing you can do is bribe harder and ensure the other party suffers.

yurnero07

Kill two people n punishment is write an essay about it.... That's how corrupt they can get.

khatteGrapes

The fact that the pune porshe case has been silently brushed under the rug speaks volumes

sharp_shooter7

In the society where every policemen, media person, politician, businessman, govt employee is corrupt. What makes you think the judges will be any different?

Sure_Buddha

Are you posting this after the bangalore it guy suicide

Think-Bet7164

There's no way for you to know. They protect their own. Had you been a lawyer, you'd know from, what are called "corridor gossips". Even then, that's not actionable. If you were a practicing lawyer, you'd know, trust me.

For the fox guarding the coop, refer to:

[https://pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1812350](https://pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1812350)

Tobermoory

Facts - Most people think judges are fair and judgements are fair till they deal with courts, I was for one like that, till few years back. A property dispute case which is still running, when I was told that I have to give bribe to the lawyer and judge besides the fee I was shellshocked! After that I have lost confidence in any single judge in this country. All of them are disgusting bribe hoggers. 

You are lucky if you don't have to deal with police or courts in your life!

veganzomby

Sad-Engineer4826

Apprehensive-Way9494

lets put it this way, Judge Loya was an honest judge

throwaway462512

jessepinkmanin9

Many judges are corrupt.. the corruption chain travels up right from the Registrar who assigns the case to a judge's bench, Lawyers, to judges.

Kumbalaya_108

Everyone can be bought just for the right amount.

raptor7197

My mama is also stuck in divorce case along with fake domestic violence on his old parents and sisters since 2020. Most people give best solution as bribing the judge lol.

TailsTheFoxywoxy

Saying this as a lawyer, hence I speak from personal experience and from stories from my seniors.

Except a few and I mean very few honest judges, all judges have a price. It's just that most of the judges don't take the money for small cases and only take it when there are big parties involved. Now this trend of taking money for favorable judgments/orders happens in the lower/trial courts as well as the high courts and in some cases, even the topmost courts/tribunals as well. It's just that as you climb the hierarchy of the courts, the amount of money to be given as a bribe increases.

As for the amounts asked, most of them are in the north of one lakh for trial courts/lower courts, several lakhs/few crores for high courts and a lot more for supreme courts.

I won't take names, but Google judges that were impeached/about to be impeached in India, and you can find the ones that were caught with their pants down in bribes. Now think about the ones that were careful enough to not get caught.

LawyerfromBengal

Not only judge's all government officers are corrupt in India

ProfessorHornKo

Yes it is not very uncommon, but only in district level courts. Above that level, there's no way you can pay bribes to a judge

defucktivehumour

What an innocent question 
Just google how many hardcore criminals are on bail you will know the answer.

Spiritual-Border-178

In my experience I have seen people paying bribes to get early dates.

Bubbly-Difficulty182

Inn loudo k sapne main bhagvaan ata hai jo inko batata hai kya karna hai. Fir ye loude hame bolte hai ki trust Supreme court's judgement

#Very corrupt.


But you need to learn the different methodologies of corruption first to even understand how quid pro quos in judicial networks, social capital corruption and privilege abuse works in the upper echelons of a state.

Pune Porsche car crash: Essay writing

Puja Khedkar: Still investigating

[Atul's Gdrive open link ](https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/124VwQpDEL6aHO__s259q2A95DaJ7FGRC)

googleydeadpool

Super corrupt . wait till you come across how they are hired for that job.

Basically upper caste fellows are judges . 

scold the judges anyway you want , and insert collegium in it somehow , theyll totally ignore you 🤣

daBuddhaWay

mclain_seki

Wild_Ask4021

Judiciary is the second most corrupt institution in India. First being the police.

abhi_y

ayedaddieeee

Big_Organization_978

highlander145

By keeping gun on others shoulders and shooting

ExpensiveEmu853

Corruption in Indian judiciary makes ias/ips looks like kids. Ex Pune Porsche case.

Pleasant_Flow_2217

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceIndia/s/G88MRUSIDY

I would like to give my example. This post is just a tip of the iceberg of the whole story.

Enough_Brilliant_881

Le moot diya tere govt employee are corrupt propoganda 🦏
Par:

Why blame govt employee only whenever people get chance they try to make money,truck driver selling petrol,taxi driver misusing vehicle, school exploiting parents, teacher giving tuition , shopkeeper selling low quality goods corruption is everywhere.

\&gt;posting this at 4am

Get some sleep even mi laaards don't care about anything past 6 o clock except in special cases. 

God i am craving for an icecream right now.

I have similar thoughts bhai you've penned it out,great 

!kudos

oknotbusy

You forgot to mention undertrials.

I think India has largest number of people rotting away in jails as undertrails, waiting for their case to be heard in the courts. Many of these people might be totally innocent, and some may even be scapegoats of the corrupt police &amp; politicians. I cannot imagine their daily mental &amp; physical torture at the hands of this pathetic system called judiciary and police of India.

The "secular" Constitution is certainly not so. It is the only anti-majority Constitution in the world. And it thus forms the "bulletproof" bulwark for the judiciary &amp; police &amp; govt to exploit &amp; oppress the majority with.

Indian government is only government in the world where the elected representatives can recommend their own salaries &amp; perks (and for the all  administrative babus including the judiciary &amp; police), vote on it, accept it, and implement it - all by themselves. Meanwhile the jawans of our armed forces, willing to die in their service to protect us citizens, were crying for basic salary parity (to match with astronomically risen inflation) and essential benefits, for decades.

We need an overhaul of all these systems ASAP. What use is trying to develop into a superpower if our foundations are themselves weak?

Random_Reflections

MRamAneeshwar

poop-pee-die

ChirpingSparrows

~~What's with this right wing hate for Judiciary? If BJP thinks judiciary is so bad, why was a former CJI (Ranjan Gogoi) made a Rajya Sabha member by same government? Basically the thing is that the government is unable to blackmail/bribe current CJI into becoming a government bitch, so they are starting this propoganda to get support for their "reforms".~~ Sure government should help judiciary hire more judges but government shouldn't be given power to directly appoint judges themselves and government must definitely not have power to remove judges. State governments already have power to transfer police officials, as a result they use police as bodyguards, make them polish their shoes; they arrest those are poor and lower caste for most minor of offence and straight up torture and sometimes even kill them in custody, on the hand they wouldn't dare touch a politician for most serious of offence unless told to do so by the same judiciary. If government is given power over judges, they would end up just like the police, it would be equivalent to Modi himself giving judgement but with more steps. Most of you have been brainwashed by the propaganda that, this old man is the best of the man and some sort of saviour, so imagine this, eventually some other government would be in power (might have in 2024 itself), what's stopping that government from using those powers against you? Government getting more power is not good for any of us. We also can't let people vote-in judges, a judge is supposed to be a neutral observer of the law, so opinion of the majority shouldn't matter. We used have juries, and members would give judgements in favour of honour killing accused; for reasons like this, we can't let a chai wala become a judge, it must be someone who knows the law and other judges can trust their judgement.

243f

Spiritual_Piccolo793

A High Court judge filed a petition against an inquiry report recommending his removal amid allegations of misconduct, raising concerns about judicial independence.

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