Judiciary in India — how independent is it?

Supreme court of India

If you want a democracy, you need to have a mechanism that serves justice, equally and to everyone. Judiciary is the mechanism made for that purpose.

But every country in the world maintains some kind of judicial system, the more important question is how independent is the judiciary.

Before we answer that question, we need to discuss what makes a judiciary independent.

1. Non intervention of other organs of the government — an ideal judiciary would have no intervention of any external power in its judgements.
2. Financial autonomy — if the judiciary needs to depend on another organ of the government for the finances to serve justice, it’s unsurprisingly not independent.
3. Appointment of judges isn’t influenced by other organs of the government — the ability to choose who’d represent the justice system, is a limiting factor to the scope of judiciary’s independence. A judiciary can be independent (or close to it) only when it derives power not from a government organ but the constitution and the people.

Now, does independence of a judiciary means that it’s ought to be all powerful? Not necessarily, in a democratic setting, the judiciary can be accountable to the constitution, people and the democratic traditions of the country and still be independent.

Now the question arises — how independent is India’s judiciary?

1. Non intervention of other organs in judgments is mostly followed. However, since India doesn’t follow a strict distribution of power, judiciary isn’t the only one with judicial powers. (Example : the legislature can accordingly punish the members who violate the code of conduct, the judiciary isn’t involved)
2. Financial autonomy — how the judiciary spends it’s funds is it’s choice, however, the budgetary allocation of funds is in the hands of the other organs in the first place.
3. Appointment of judges — the judges of the supreme court are appointed by the president following the recommendation of the chief justice, however, the council of ministers play a direct role in influencing the decisions of the president.

These features are partially present. But is the judiciary accountable to the people? — yes. To the constitution? — absolutely. To the democratic traditions? — perhaps.

The structure of Indian judiciary as per the constitution, gives it immense power and jurisdiction, ensuring it’s independent.

The structure of Indian judiciary is an integrated one, making the supreme court the apex court, under which all the other courts work.

The supreme court’s jurisdiction is as follows —

1. Advisory jurisdiction — to advice the president on the matters of public importance.
2. Writs jurisdiction — to issue writs stating what to be done and what not to be done.
3. Appellate jurisdiction — to hear cases that are out of scope of the lower courts, or to transfer any cases from one court to another or to itself.
4. Original jurisdiction — to settle disputes between the union and states or between the states.
5. Special powers — to hear appeals that might not follow the criteria of an appeal.
6. Judicial review — to declare any law unconstitutional if the SC finds its interpretation inconsistent with the constitution.

Over the years, the judiciary has also be involved in public interest litigation, the most powerful instrument of judicial activism, further diversifying it’s scope of justice.

However, it’s not without problems ofcourse —

1. Intervening into the functions of other organs of the government — things like PIL being the responsibility of the executive, the involvement of judiciary is sometimes criticized.
2. Legislature’s criticism — the legislature criticises the judiciary for violating it’s “parliamentary sovereignty”
3. Overburdening of the courts — many petitions are baseless, consuming a lot of time unnecessary, further adding to a series of backlogs of cases.

Conclusion and a way forward —

1. Judiciary in India isn’t perfect but comparatively much more stronger than most of the nations that claim to be democratic but acts contrarily.
2. Judiciary in India has strengthened over each trial and error.
3. The problem of PIL remains but the situation can be improved if the SC decides to penalise the people who form baseless petitions to divert attention.