Supreme Court’s 2026 calendar shows only 219 full working days despite 5.3 crore pending cases; High Courts have 29% vacancies and district courts 19%.
India’s judiciary is once again confronted with an uncomfortable truth: the institution meant to deliver justice with urgency continues to operate at a pace divorced from the scale of the crisis. The supreme Court’s 2026 calendar — with just 219 full working days — exposes a deeper structural contradiction: a system drowning in 5.3 crore pending cases simply cannot afford a schedule designed for a bygone era, when case load and population were a fraction of today’s.
The official justification is always the same — “judicial independence,” “mental bandwidth,” and “quality of adjudication.” But beneath the surface lies a mix of hidden incentives. A slower system quietly benefits governments that prefer judicial bottlenecks over rapid scrutiny, especially in politically sensitive matters. Economically, a congested judiciary feeds an entire ecosystem of adjournment culture, procedural delays, and litigation-driven industries that thrive on uncertainty.
The institutional failures are stark. High Courts function with 29% vacancies, district courts with 19%, and appointments are routinely stuck between the Executive and the Collegium — a tug-of-war where citizens are collateral damage. Short-term, this translates into delayed bail hearings, stalled commercial disputes, and eroding public trust. Long-term, it risks normalising a two-speed justice system: quick relief for the powerful, endless waiting for everyone else.
At what point does “judicial independence” become indistinguishable from institutional complacency — and who ultimately benefits from a justice system that moves slower than the society it claims to serve?
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