Transparency and accountability of the judiciary

Detail

1. The principle: independence with accountability

• Judicial independence means judges can decide cases without pressure from the government, Parliament or powerful people.
• Judicial accountability means judges must still answer for how they use their power. They must give reasons, follow rules and be open to correction.
• NCERT Class 11 ("Judiciary") says independence "does not imply arbitriness or absence of accountability". Judges are part of a democracy. They must be answerable to the Constitution and to the people.
• NCERT Class 8 (Parliamentary System) asks the reader how the judiciary's own actions are checked. Under checks and balances, every organ is checked by the others, and the courts are included.
• NCERT Class 7 calls the judiciary a watchdog on the government. A watchdog must also be trusted, and openness is how it earns that trust.

2. Internal checks (inside the judiciary)

• Appeals: a higher court can correct a lower court (High Court → Supreme Court under Articles 132–134 and 136).
• Review: the Supreme Court can review its own judgment (Article 137). A curative petition is a final, narrow chance to fix a serious injustice after a review fails (Rupa Ashok Hurra, 2002).
• Larger benches: a bench of 5 or more judges, called a constitution bench, must hear big constitutional questions (Article 145(3)). A larger bench can overrule a smaller one.
• Reasoned public judgments: judges must explain why they decided as they did, in a judgment anyone can read. Reasons let the public and later courts test the decision.

3. External checks (from outside the judiciary)

• Removal of judges (Article 124(4); Judges (Inquiry) Act, 1968; covered in §5):
• It can only be for "proved misbehaviour or incapacity".
• It needs a special majority in each House: a majority of total membership and two-thirds of members present and voting.

• No Supreme Court judge has been removed so far.

• Parliament's laws on the courts:

• Parliament fixes the number of Supreme Court judges by law (Article 124(1)). The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956, was amended in 2019 to allow 34 judges, including the CJI.

• Parliament can widen the Court's jurisdiction (Article 138).

• Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005: citizens can ask courts' Central Public Information Officers (CPIOs) for information. A CPIO is the officer who answers RTI requests (see §5 below).

• Limits on outside checks:
• Parliament cannot discuss a judge's conduct in office except during a removal motion (Article 121; Article 211 for state legislatures).
• Courts can punish contempt of court (disrespect for or obstruction of a court) under Articles 129 and 215 and the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.

4. Ethical codes for judges

• Restatement of Values of Judicial Life (1997): the Supreme Court's full court adopted it in May 1997. It is a code of conduct with 16 points. Examples:
• no close links with lawyers who appear in the judge's court;
• no hearing cases involving family or friends;
• no public comment on political matters or on cases the judge may decide;

• no business or trading in shares.

• Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct (2002): an international code with six values: independence, impartiality, integrity, propriety, equality, and competence and diligence.

• Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, 2010: an attempt to turn these values into law.
• Steps in Parliament:
  • It was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 1 December 2010 by Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily [4].
  • It was sent to a Standing Committee on 30 December 2010. The Committee reported on 30 August 2011 [4].
  • The Lok Sabha passed it on 29 March 2012 [4].
  • The Rajya Sabha never passed it, and it lapsed when the 15th Lok Sabha was dissolved in 2014.
• What it would have done:
  • It would have made the code of conduct legally binding [5].
  • Judges would have declared their own assets and those of their spouse and children every year, on the court's website [5].
  • It would have set up a National Judicial Oversight Committee, a Complaints Scrutiny Panel and an investigation committee, so that any person could complain about a judge's "misbehaviour" [5].
  • Complaints would have stayed confidential, and frivolous complaints would have been punished [5].

5. RTI and disclosure

• Central Public Information Officer v. Subhash Chandra Agarwal (13 November 2019, five judges):
• The office of the CJI is a "public authority" under the RTI Act. It is part of the Supreme Court, so the RTI Act applies to it.
• Judges' asset information is not automatically secret. It is personal information, but it can be disclosed when public interest outweighs privacy (Section 8(1)(j) of the RTI Act).
• Collegium deliberations (the private discussions on whom to appoint) can be withheld. The final decisions of the collegium can be shared.

• The balance the Court struck: transparency vs. a judge's right to privacy vs. judicial independence. Each RTI request is judged case by case.

• Asset declarations, step by step:

• 1997 resolution: judges must declare their assets to the CJI when they take office and whenever they make a large purchase [3]. These declarations stayed private.
• 2009: judges began publishing asset declarations on the website voluntarily.

• 1 April 2025: the full court decided that judges' asset statements will be placed in the public domain on the Supreme Court website [2]. Statements are uploaded as they come in [2]. Publishing is now mandatory [3].

• Openness on appointments:

• On 5 May 2025 the Supreme Court put the full appointment process for High Court and Supreme Court judges on its website. This includes the roles of the High Court collegium, state governments, the Union government and the Supreme Court collegium [2].
• It also uploaded details of High Court appointments approved by the collegium between 9 November 2022 and 5 May 2025 [2]. For each person it gave:
  • whether they came from the Bar or from judicial service;
  • their category (SC/ST/OBC/minority/woman);
  • whether they are related to a sitting or retired judge.

6. Case allocation: "Master of the roster"

• Master of the roster means the CJI's administrative power to form benches and decide which bench hears which case. A roster is the list that shows which bench handles which type of case.
• The 2018 crisis:
• On 12 January 2018 four senior judges held a press conference. They were Justices J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph.
• They said important cases were being sent to chosen benches without a clear rule.

• This was the first such public protest by sitting Supreme Court judges.

• The courts upheld the CJI's power:

Case	Year	Holding
Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms v. Union of India	November 2017	The CJI alone forms benches and allocates cases.
Asok Pande v. Supreme Court of India	April 2018	The CJI is "master of the roster". The request to bind the CJI with fixed rules was rejected.
Shanti Bhushan v. Supreme Court of India	July 2018	"Chief Justice" cannot be read as "collegium" for allocating cases. The power rests with the CJI.

• Reforms that followed: the subject-wise roster is now published, and case listing is computerised. This reduces the chance of hand-picking benches.

7. Open justice

Open justice means justice must be done in public view, so people can see that courts are fair.

(a) Live-streaming

• Swapnil Tripathi v. Supreme Court of India (26 September 2018): live-streaming of court hearings was allowed in principle. The Court linked it to the public's right to know (Article 19(1)(a)) and the right to access justice (Article 21).
• Supreme Court constitution-bench hearings have streamed since 27 September 2022. The Court keeps an archive of past constitution-bench and ceremonial-bench hearings on its website [8].
• Several High Courts, such as Gujarat, Karnataka and Orissa, also stream their hearings under their own rules.

(b) Sealed cover jurisprudence

• Sealed cover jurisprudence means a court takes information from the government (or an agency) in a sealed envelope. Only the judges read it. The other side cannot see it or reply to it.
• Earlier uses: the Rafale fighter-jet case (2018) and the Assam NRC monitoring (2018–19).
• Turning point:
• One Rank One Pension case (March 2023): CJI D.Y. Chandrachud refused to accept the Attorney General's sealed note. He said sealed covers go against fair justice.
• Madhyamam Broadcasting Ltd. v. Union of India (5 April 2023): this was the MediaOne channel ban case.
  • The Court said sealed covers break natural justice. The basic rule of natural justice is that each side must hear the other's case.
  • The Court proposed public-interest immunity as a better option. Sensitive parts are hidden, but the court appoints an amicus curiae (a lawyer who helps the court) to argue for the side that cannot see them.

(c) Recusal

• Recusal means a judge steps away from a case because of a conflict of interest, or because people may reasonably think the judge is biased. The rule behind it is that "no one should be a judge in their own cause".
• India has no codified (written) recusal rules. The judge concerned decides alone and does not always give reasons.
• Examples:
• Justice U.U. Lalit (January 2019) stepped off the Ayodhya bench. As a lawyer, he had appeared for former UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh in a related case.
• Justice Arun Mishra (October 2019) refused to step off the constitution bench in the land-acquisition reference under Section 24 of the 2013 land acquisition law. He had earlier ruled on the same issue (Indore Development Authority, 2018). He said recusal on demand would let parties choose their own judges ("bench hunting").

(d) Judgments in Indian languages

• SUVAS (Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software) is an AI tool for translating legal documents. The Supreme Court built it with technical support from the Ministry of Electronics and IT [6].

• It translates English judgments into ten languages, and from them back into English: Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Bengali and Urdu [6].

• AI tools built with the NIC now translate Supreme Court judgments into 18 Indian languages. They are published free on the e-SCR (Electronic Supreme Court Reports) portal [7].

• The e-Courts Mission Mode Project (2007) began putting court records online [7].
• Diversity on the bench and post-retirement jobs for judges are covered in §1 and §4.

8. NCERT's conclusion

• People's expectations of the courts have risen, and public trust depends on how the courts work in practice.
• Problems such as the easy acquittal of powerful accused people and witnesses who turn hostile (change their story in court) weaken that trust.
• So transparency is not a threat to independence. It is what keeps people trusting the courts.

Prelims Hooks

• CPIO, Supreme Court v. Subhash Chandra Agarwal (2019, five judges): the office of the CJI is a public authority under the RTI Act, 2005. Collegium deliberations can still be withheld.
• "Master of the roster" (the CJI's power to form benches and allocate cases) was upheld in Campaign for Judicial Accountability (2017), Asok Pande (April 2018) and Shanti Bhushan (July 2018). The power rests with the CJI, not the collegium.
• Swapnil Tripathi (2018) allowed live-streaming. Constitution-bench streaming began in September 2022.
• Madhyamam Broadcasting (2023), the MediaOne case: criticised sealed cover procedure and suggested public-interest immunity with an amicus.
• Restatement of Values of Judicial Life dates from 1997 (Supreme Court full court). The Bangalore Principles date from 2002 (international).
• Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, 2010: passed by the Lok Sabha on 29 March 2012 [4]. It never became law.
• Full-court decision of 1 April 2025: judges' assets go on the Supreme Court website [2].
• SUVAS is an AI translation tool of the Supreme Court. It is not an e-filing portal [6].
• Article 137 deals with review of Supreme Court judgments. Article 121 bars Parliament from discussing a judge's conduct except during a removal motion.
• Trap: India has no statute on recusal. The judge decides alone.

Mains Points

• Independence vs. accountability: accountability does not have to mean control by the executive. Better tools come from within the judiciary: asset disclosure, published rosters, live-streaming and written recusal rules. The judiciary needs both independence and accountability, and these tools give accountability without government control.
• Gaps in accountability:
• Between "no action" and removal, the only option is the confidential in-house procedure.
• The Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill lapsed.
• Collegium reasons stay secret under Subhash Chandra Agarwal.

• Reform ideas: a statutory complaints body, a written recusal code, and objective, computerised case allocation.

• Open justice vs. state secrecy: sealed covers protect sensitive information but deny the other side a fair hearing. Madhyamam offers a middle path with public-interest immunity, a court-appointed amicus and partial redaction (blacking out sensitive lines).

• Technology and access: live-streaming, the e-SCR portal and translation into 18 languages [7] let ordinary citizens follow and read what courts do. This builds trust that does not depend on prosecution outcomes.