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Speaking at Nyaya Nirmaan 2025 on Friday, 19 September, Sanjeev Sanyal, economic advisor to PM Modi, declared that the biggest hurdle to Viksit Bharat @2047 is India’s judicial system.

Nyaya Nirmaan 2025 was a conference organized by the General Counsels’ Association of India (GCAI) around the theme Reimagining India’s Legal Foundations for Viksit Bharat @2047. The event, held at Bharat Mandapam, Delhi, hosted advocates, jurists, judges, ministers, policymakers, and corporate officials deliberating on commercial law, the legal profession, and judicial reforms to shape the future of the Indian legal system.

Speaking during the last session of the day, Reimagining Justice Delivery, Sanyal had this to say: “The judicial system and the legal ecosystem, but the judicial system in particular, is now in my view the single biggest hurdle to becoming Viksit Bharat and growing rapidly.”

Sanyal has been serving as Secretary to the GOI in the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Counsel (PM-EAC) since 2022. Before that he was the Principal Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Finance, and before that, Global Strategist at Deutsche Bank, a German multinational bank.

He began his speech by emphasizing the importance of rapid development over the next two decades, pointing out that India is the fourth largest economy in the world today, soon to be the third. But to climb further up the ladder, India must make rapid strides while its population is still young. No matter the infrastructural progress made, he says, this is impossible with the current “inability to enforce contracts on time or to deliver justice.”

He points out that as a policymaker the biggest drawback while making any rules, regulations or policies is the ‘99-1 problem’ – 99% of these rules are made to tackle 1% of misuse, because the legal system cannot be trusted to deal with these fringe cases efficiently. This makes the rules unnecessarily complicated, leading to a compounding effect on the whole system.

Next, Sanyal brought up the issue of mandatory pre-litigation mediation in commercial cases. Under the Commercial Courts Act 2015, this is a necessary step before legal proceedings. Citing data from the Mumbai Commercial Courts, he says “between 98 to 99% of pre-litigation mediation actually fails,” before the cases are sent back to the courts they were trying to avoid. All this leads to is longer timelines and larger fees. Though not against mediation, he asks, “why not make this simply voluntary?”

Sanyal says that the legal profession must accept responsibility for such systems, which while beneficial for them, are “a massive cost to the rest of the system.” He criticises the ‘self-congratulatory’ tone used within the legal ecosystem, calling for a change in its ‘culture’.

He calls the legal system ‘medieval’, “where you have a caste system of stratification of lawyers.” He goes as far as to ask why someone even needs a “legal degree to argue your case? This is the age of AI.” – if a citizen can learn to represent themselves, they should be allowed to. He draws a similar parallel with the judiciary, where judges promoted from lower courts are treated differently from those who were senior advocates. He argues that there should be a meritocratic system for judges to rise to the top.

He continued his tirade against the legal system, pointing out colonial hangovers in its functioning. He pulled up the judiciary for the language it uses – ‘my lord’ to refer to judges and calling pleas ‘prayers’ – saying that this is not how a democratic system should work. He questioned the months-long breaks enjoyed by the judiciary, asking if judges were not also public servants like bureaucrats, police officers, and even doctors.

He concluded his address by reemphasising that India has “about 20-25 years to make it. We don’t have time to waste.”

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Sanyal has made the assertion that the current judicial system stands as a roadblock to Viksit Bharat many times over the past year. His remarks come as the Centre has been butting heads with the judiciary over myriad issues – appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner, amendments to the Waqf Act, and most clearly, powers enjoyed by Governors over States.

The Supreme Court’s directive limiting the time Governors and even the President can sit on bills passed by State legislatures brought an onslaught of criticism from the ruling party. Questions were raised about the top court’s integrity and authority, particularly against the collegium system. Pointing out a lack of transparency, the Centre suggested a new system where it has more control over who gets appointed as a judge and who doesn’t.

At the same time, several of Sanyal’s points have been demonstrated by the court itself over the years.

Bail pleas of the accused in the Delhi Riots case and Bhim Koregaon case were adjourned for years despite the Supreme Court directing High Courts to maintain bail timelines in criminal cases. Hearings were adjourned for reasons as trivial as late submission of documents to the judges being on vacation. Even now that the Delhi Riots bail plea has made it to the Supreme Court, it has already been adjourned twice.

Many journalists have also pointed to the lack of transparency in the assignment of cases to judges, which is done behind closed doors by the Chief Justice. Why is it that some cases make it to hearing on the same day as they are registered, while others get buried in paperwork for years? Instead of addressing inquiries on consistency and fairness, the judiciary often rebukes any questions of suspicion, seemingly placing itself above accountability.

Some judges have heard cases against themselves, while others have made suo moto judgements against public interest, leading to unnecessary processes that often have to be reversed, leading to wasted resources, manpower and time. [Rh/DS]

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