Reshaping and Restructuring the Judiciary: A Law & Economics Analysis

-Krishna Agarwal

Rule of law is an important facet of Welfare State. The State is not an end in itself and an obligation is conferred on the State to meet the interests of the citizens.  Access to Justice is a basic Fundamental Right granted by the Constitution of India. However, its fruits remained confined to a few until the process of adjudication and justice delivery is streamlined in the country, keeping newer challenges in mind. A closer look will reveal that the Rule of Law is directly proportional to the economic growth of the country.

India ranked 63 out of 190 countries in the Ease of Doing Business Index, 20204 while it ranked
69 out of 128 countries in Rule of Law Index in 2020.5 According to Institute for Economics and Peace, approximately 9 % of the GDP is cost to India due to lack of proper justice delivery system. Thus, it is important to have a discourse on how the legal rules and standards controlling adjudication affect the efficiency of the judicial system.

Indian judiciary in Pre-COVID times was already facing the problems of backlog, pendency, the inadequate proportion of judges, lack of infrastructure etc. COVID-19 can be seen as a negative externality as it has posed a serious crisis to the justice delivery system in India. Thus, a policy to address this concern must be such that the marginal benefit gained due to the introduction of the policy exceeds the marginal costs accrued due to its introduction.

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