Citizens and Advocates Losing Faith in Judiciary as Delays, Opacity and Questions of Accountability Deepen Concerns
Public confidence in the judiciary is increasingly being tested by a combination of prolonged litigation, administrative opacity, allegations concerning judicial conduct and growing confrontations between advocates and judges.
For ordinary citizens, the first point of contact with the justice system is often not a constitutional judgment but the experience of waiting. Cases can remain pending for years, repeated adjournments can become routine, and the financial and emotional cost of litigation can continue long after the original dispute has begun to fade.
For advocates, the concerns are often more immediate. Lawyers work daily within the court system and therefore directly experience listing difficulties, delayed orders, infrastructure problems, courtroom conduct and administrative decisions. When these frustrations accumulate, disagreements can increasingly move from private representations to collective protests.
Recent developments in Rajasthan have brought this Bar–Bench tension sharply into the public domain. Lawyers have protested against the functioning of Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma of the Rajasthan High Court amid a controversy involving correspondence by Supreme Court Justice Sandeep Mehta concerning the functioning and alleged exercise of powers by the Acting Chief Justice.
The controversy has been particularly significant because it has involved questions extending beyond an ordinary disagreement between lawyers and a judge. It has raised broader questions about judicial administration, institutional authority and the mechanisms available for addressing concerns involving senior members of the judiciary.
Lawyers’ associations in Jodhpur also announced abstention from judicial work and demanded that the Acting Chief Justice be relieved of judicial and administrative responsibilities. The associations maintained that their action was connected with the dignity and independence of the judicial institution.
At the same time, the Supreme Court Collegium recommended Justice Sanjay Kumar Agarwal of the Chhattisgarh High Court as Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court. The development came against the backdrop of the controversy surrounding the Acting Chief Justice.
The Rajasthan episode is important because disagreements within the judicial institution can have consequences well beyond the judges involved. Once allegations or institutional correspondence become public, confidence among lawyers and litigants can be affected even before any formal determination of the allegations.
A separate confrontation in Gurugram demonstrated how quickly a dispute between advocates and a judicial officer can disrupt court functioning. Lawyers boycotted the court of a Judicial Magistrate First Class and staged a protest over alleged misbehaviour with advocates.
Such incidents demonstrate the fragile nature of the relationship between the Bar and Bench. Advocates require the ability to raise genuine concerns about courtroom conduct and professional dignity. Judges, however, must also be protected from pressure designed to influence judicial decisions.
The difficult question is where legitimate professional protest ends and impermissible pressure on judicial independence begins.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear that lawyers do not possess an unrestricted right to strike or boycott courts. The principal reason is straightforward: when lawyers stop appearing, the immediate burden is carried by litigants, not by the judge or the Bar association.
A person whose case is listed may have travelled hundreds of kilometres, arranged witnesses, taken leave from employment or spent money on legal representation. When proceedings are disrupted because of a Bar–Bench dispute, that litigant can lose another opportunity for a hearing.
This creates a troubling paradox. Advocates may protest because they believe the justice system is not functioning properly, yet prolonged protests can themselves contribute to the delay that undermines public faith in that system.
The deeper problem, however, cannot be reduced to lawyers’ strikes.
Judicial vacancies, inadequate infrastructure, enormous case pendency and procedural delays remain persistent challenges. Senior judicial officials themselves have repeatedly acknowledged that unnecessary adjournments and institutional limitations contribute to delayed justice.
When delay becomes normalised, citizens can begin to perceive justice as something available primarily to those with the financial resources and patience to remain in litigation for years.
That perception can be particularly damaging in constitutional democracies. Courts derive their authority not merely from legal powers but from public acceptance of their legitimacy.
Transparency is therefore equally important.
Citizens and lawyers increasingly expect greater clarity concerning judicial appointments, transfers, case allocation, administrative decisions and mechanisms for dealing with complaints against judges. Where institutional procedures are difficult to understand, speculation can fill the information gap.
Opacity does not necessarily establish wrongdoing. But a lack of transparency can create an environment in which allegations become more difficult to assess and institutional decisions become more difficult to defend.
Judicial accountability presents an even more complicated problem.
Judges must remain independent from political pressure, media campaigns and organised attempts to influence decisions. At the same time, judicial independence cannot reasonably mean that every question concerning judicial administration or professional conduct is beyond scrutiny.
The credibility of the judiciary ultimately depends on maintaining both sides of this balance: independence from improper influence and accountability through credible institutional mechanisms.
Recent comments by senior judges have themselves highlighted the importance of public confidence. Former Chief Justice of India B. R. Gavai warned in 2025 that corruption and misconduct among judges could erode public faith in the judiciary. He also raised concerns about judges entering politics or accepting government positions after retirement, observing that such practices could affect perceptions of judicial independence.
These concerns are not unique to India.
Across democracies, courts are facing questions about delay, accessibility, transparency and institutional independence. International research shows that public trust in courts varies substantially between countries and over time. The OECD’s 2025 trust survey found that an average of 54% of respondents across OECD countries expressed high or moderately high trust in courts, demonstrating that judicial confidence remains substantial but far from universal.
The global debate is therefore not about whether courts have lost all public trust. Rather, it concerns what happens when the distance between institutional legitimacy and people’s everyday experience becomes too wide.
For citizens, legitimacy is often measured through simple questions: Was my case heard? Did I receive a decision within a reasonable time? Could I understand the process? Was everyone treated equally? Could misconduct be addressed? Did wealth, influence or connections appear to matter?
For advocates, additional questions arise: Can lawyers perform their professional duties without intimidation? Are courtroom interactions respectful? Are administrative decisions predictable? Is there an effective mechanism to raise grievances without resorting to boycott or confrontation?
If the answer to these questions becomes increasingly negative, institutional confidence can weaken even without a dramatic collapse in formal trust.
This is why the recent protests against judges should not be dismissed merely as another episode of Bar indiscipline. Nor should every allegation made by advocates automatically be treated as proof of judicial misconduct.
Both extremes are dangerous.
The judiciary cannot function if judges are subjected to organised pressure whenever lawyers dislike an order. Equally, the Bar cannot function effectively if legitimate complaints concerning courtroom administration or professional dignity have no credible avenue for examination.
A mature justice system therefore requires an institutional safety valve—a mechanism through which serious complaints can be independently examined, frivolous complaints can be rejected, and genuine grievances can be addressed without paralysing court proceedings.
The objective should not be to silence either the Bar or the Bench.
It should be to ensure that neither side becomes more powerful than the justice that both are constitutionally expected to serve.
The ultimate stakeholder is the citizen.
When lawyers protest, when judges respond defensively, when cases are adjourned and when institutional disputes remain unresolved, the ordinary litigant can find himself trapped between two pillars of the justice system.
That is where the greatest danger to public confidence lies.
A judiciary may survive criticism. It may survive political controversy. It may survive individual institutional disputes.
What is much harder to survive is a sustained public perception that justice is slow, inaccessible, opaque, unequal or incapable of correcting its own failures.
Restoring confidence therefore requires more than defending the judiciary against criticism. It requires measurable improvements in the experience of justice: fewer unnecessary adjournments, adequate judicial strength, better infrastructure, transparent administration, meaningful accountability and respectful Bar–Bench relations.
The present wave of advocate protests should consequently be treated as an institutional warning.
The question before the justice system is no longer simply whether citizens trust judges or whether judges trust advocates.
The more fundamental question is whether citizens still believe that the entire system—judges, lawyers and court administration—is capable of delivering timely, impartial and accessible justice.
If that confidence continues to weaken, rebuilding it will require institutional reform rather than assurances alone.
