We know Tareek pai Tareek is not just movie dialogue; it is a grim reality echoing in the legal and judicial system of our country. With cases being heard for more than a year, the cry for justice has become a new normal. But this normal need not be normalised at all.
As of September 2025, a total of 5.34 crore cases remain pending across all courts in India. This includes nearly 4.7 crore cases in the district and subordinate judiciary, around 63.8 lakh cases before the High Courts, and approximately 88,251 cases pending in the Supreme Court.
However, with approximately 890 central laws in India by the data of May 2025, the implementation becomes an equally crucial subject. Laws without proper implementation are like a raincoat without rainfall.
India has taken many measures to minimise the gap in unfolding the process of justice; some of them are as follows—
Potentially, India’s legal system will function right when wrong is acknowledged and not merely hidden or shut behind long trails. The recent change in the lady of justice was accurate, as it hit on the contemporary issues in the legal system.
“The Lady of Justice is no longer blindfolded to the struggles of the marginalized. She now listens with compassion and fairness, embracing diversity and ensuring that justice is inclusive for all.” — Justice Indira Banerjee.
This hints at rethinking ongoing practices—symbolically as well as physically.
Current Challenges Hindering Speedy Justice
When potholes exist, so does the space for stagnant water; similarly, where there is a loophole, so does the space for corruption and inaccuracies. Some of them are as follows:
Vacancy of Judicial Positions—Around 5,600 vacancies exist in Supreme Court, High Court, and District Court positions. The reasons for this are delays in the recruitment of the lower judiciary, lack of modernisation in this sector, unchecked vacancies, etc. Do you know that India has one of the lowest judge-to-population ratios in the world? Despite a 2002 directive from the All India Judges Association Case, which recommended a ratio of 50 per million population by 2007, the actual ratio remains below 25 per million by 2024.
Undue Case Transfers— Indian legal system is accustomed to the process for transferring civil and criminal cases between courts to ensure fair trials, rectify jurisdictional errors, and address issues like proven or suspected bias, financial hardship, or medical conditions.
These transfers, though, are allowed under specific conditions for upholding justice, but this mechanism is often misused, which leads to prolonged proceedings that delay the process of justice. Delhi High Court has expressed serious concerns about suchmisuse, stating that it undermines both impartiality and the timely delivery of justice byjudicial officers and litigants.
Justice Shankar expressed, “Every order passed by a court that is unpalatable to a litigant cannot form the basis to abandon that court and seek to argue the matter elsewhere. Such a practice must be emphatically deprecated.”
The Complicated Process of Courts— The Indian legal and judicial system is cumbersome, and it demands a thorough understanding to unravel its complexities. The judiciary is multi-layered, comprising supreme courts, high courts, and subordinate courts, which further expand to include district, session, and magistrate courts.
Then comes the complexity of procedures, which begins with filing a lawsuit, case preparation, appeals, hearings, evidence gathering, argumentation, adjournments, examinations, and revisions, among others. But apart from structural complexities, there is a grim floor where undertrials constitute the larger population behind bars, which contravenes the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
Lesser Effectiveness of the Tribunals— The 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1976 introduced a constitutional framework for tribunals in India by inserting Part XIV-A (Articles 323A and 323B) into the Constitution. Although it did not directly establish tribunals, it empowered Parliament and State Legislatures to create specialised bodies for areas such as taxation, labour, environment, consumer disputes, and service matters.
With the introduction of Article 323B of the Constitution, tribunals were envisaged to ease the mounting burden on regular courts by providing specialised forums for quicker resolution of disputes. However, they too suffer from chronic problems such as vacant judicial positions, inadequate infrastructure, and procedural bottlenecks, which contribute to delays. Surprisingly, the top 5 central tribunals of our country have 3.5 lakh cases pending before them.
Deliberate Delays by Litigants— We have to uncover the harsh fact that some justice providers sometimes emerge as justice smashers. Many a time, litigants weaponise the adjournments, appeals, non-appearances, filing of frivolous applications, etc., for the sake of minting more money, but this does not make a noble profession ugly; it only shows a reality of misapplication of laws, which is brimming in all the sectors.
How Can the Gaps Be Filled?
There are many solutions to this problem, all pointing to a common implication: a lack of faith in the justice and legal system. For the gaps, there always exists a bridge to create a walkway—and so it is with this challenge-cum-imbalance, which has pushed many social issues such as retaliations, conspiratorial crimes, cyberbullying, slandering, and many more. Some potential solutions are as follows:
Separation of Courts in Appeal and Review Cases:
The separation of courts within the same jurisdiction, tasked with handling appeals and review cases, can be efficacious in reducing backlogs. Forming specialised benches appointed on a merit and voting basis can hit two birds with one stone—reducing the number of pending cases and creating new judicial positions to address the persistent national issue of unemployment through judicial doors.
It will relieve the ordinary courts from the burden of appeal and review cases so that the fresh cases can receive the basic right of justice.
Re-regulating Bar Associations:
Bar associations are not only platforms for posting the best candidates for vacant chairs, but they are also hallmarks from which the future of the legal and justice system is envisioned. These bodies carry a crucial role in ensuring the integrity of the justice system, yet their internal processes often lack scrutiny and fairness. The latest headlines, which highlighted that the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has accepted a donation of Rs. 50 crore from industrialists has raised ethical issues.
The astonishing part was the appeal extended to the industrialists to contribute to the lawyers’ health insurance scheme. All this is a direct transfer of the autonomy that the bar association enjoys for the freedom of justice in a disordered system.
Monetary support works best when it comes from within. When lawyers themselves contribute voluntarily, it keeps the association independent and grounded in its own core values, because it is pricier than the money; it is about the ownership, trust, and standing firm as a perfect epitome of justice gatekeepers.
External donations can still play a role, but they are better suited for causes that go beyond the legal fraternity, like building public legal awareness, improving access to justice, or supporting legal aid infrastructure. That way, the help reaches more people, and the credibility of both the donors and the association stays intact.
Moreover, there are ongoing irregularities, politicisation, and a lack of transparency in the Bar Council of India, which is the body of the legal fraternity in India.
Recently, Senior advocate Adish Aggarwala pointed out that the number of valid votes counted in a recent SCBA election exceeded the total ballots issued, a procedural anomaly that can’tbe overlooked. To confront this, a hopeful step can be the re-composition of the bar councils with 50% appointed and the other 50% members elected by the statutory central and state bar councils to pedal the wheels of justice.
Case Filing with Category-Wise Disposal Deadlines:
Every case filing gets dwindled from the door of a chamber to the desk of a courtroom due to the complicated procedures, unfair adjournments, unfair delays by the litigants, unduly gains to the opposite parties, and many more factors. Every case filing should come with a clearly defined case disposal deadline, categorised based on the complexity and nature of the case. Such legislation can be a turning point in India’s judicial system that will address the inefficiencies and deliberate delays.
Based on their disposal timelines, they can ensure that each case is resolved within an appropriate and realistic time frame. This not only brings in the discipline within the legal system but also minimises the probability of misuse by litigants who intentionally prolong proceedings to extract higher fees.
This step is a face of reform for the countless undertrials who have been languishing in jails. Citizens who remain imprisoned without being convicted become the worst sufferers of this chain. So this category-wise timeline framework upholds both fairness and swiftness, ensuring that justice is not an abstract idea but a real idea that can be felt.
Pre-Litigation Cells:
Many times, even the simplest disputes spiral into prolonged battles simply due to the complex procedures and intimidating nature of court proceedings. What could be resolved with a conversation and deliberation becomes a far-flung case mazed in the legal formalities.
This can be resolved via pre-litigation cells; it is not a substitute for litigation, but a step to justice before going into a courtroom proceeding. A mandatory step that will not curtail the right to obtain justice but will only redirect the way to it.
These pre-litigation cells are the best as a gateway to avoid the baggage of litigation. Operated by trained mediators, advocates with ADR experience, and adjudicators, they aim to resolve matters before they enter the courtroom.
Under the regulations of the Arbitration andConciliation Act, 1996, these arbitration and mediation centres serve a vital purpose, making justice accessible, approachable, and quicker. In addition, it will prevent unnecessary detention for petty offences or minor disputes. Though arbitration and mediation cells are technically attached to most courts, their potential is often underutilised. They work best not when treated as optional but when made the first mandatory step in conflict resolution for arbitrable cases. That’s how they can genuinely reduce pendency, uphold fairness, and simplify the road to justice.
Cleaning the heap of irrelevant older laws:
It is rightly stated, “The more laws, the less justice”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
The Salt Cess Act, 1953; the Hackney Carriage Act, 1879; the Indian Treasure Trove Act,1878; and the Sarais Act, 1867—are some laws from the heap of redundant and irrelevant laws that require timely eradication or repeal to meet present requirements. This array is another reason that elongates the process of justice delivery by creating confusion about what is and isn’t enforceable, which leads to unnecessary litigation and procedural delays.
Often, courts are bogged down in spending valuable time interpreting or referencing outdated statutes that have lost their relevance. These obsolete laws can sometimes become the reasons for long legal proceedings, hearings, or appeals.
Conclusion
Justice is truly served only when delivered within the right time frame. Beyond that, it turns into a formality that strips off the moral essence. Today, standing up for what is right is often belittled, as power overshadows the very institutions meant to uphold fairness. Chains of challenges like outdated laws, judicial vacancies, tactical delays by litigants, loopholes in tribunals, and even the misapplication of laws are making justice a delayed process.
The pool of solutions exists, but they remain futile unless realised and debated. There comes the separation of appeals and review cases across courts, rearranging the bar councils to resolve the growing discrepancies, mandating pre-litigation steps, and enforcing strict timelines for case disposal. The scope of reform is persistent.
The Lady of Justice has been refigured, yet systematic pitfalls prevail despite reforms like the National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms (2011) or the establishment of fast-track courts for gruesome crimes and cases involving women, children, and senior citizens. But reforms cannot be mere words on paper; they are to be the winds of transformation, constantly discussed, refined, and acted upon. We know that law exists in society’s conscience, but often it is confined to books only, detached from practicality.
These written articulations, speeches, debates, research papers, etc., are the constant reminders that justice is not only courtroom jargon but a moral duty of humankind to revive it. The call for legal reforms is, therefore, not just administrative—it is a reflection of how close, or how distant, we are from the vision of a just, equitable, and timely legal system.