(a) "The Indian judicial system has failed to deliver justice expeditiously". Examine the challenges faced by the judiciary and…

(a) Judicial Delays: Challenges and Measures

The claim that the judiciary has failed to deliver justice expeditiously is largely true, though not absolute. India’s courts have over 5 crore pending cases, with a judge-population ratio of roughly 21 judges per million, far below comparable democracies, and many courts suffer from inadequate buildings, staff, digital records and case-management systems. A structural cause is delayed appointments: the Collegium system, after the NJAC was struck down in Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association v. Union of India (2015), leaves gaps in higher-judiciary appointments and creates uncertainty. Delays are compounded by procedural formalism, large case loads in lower courts and limited alternative dispute resolution. Yet the system is not stagnant. E-Courts, Lok Adalats, Fast Track Courts and ADR mechanisms have reduced disposal time in selected matters, and the Law Commission’s 230th Report (2009) urged reducing adjournments and vacations and filling vacancies promptly, while its 245th Report (2014) proposed a rate-of-disposal method for fixing judge strength. The finding is that delay is systemic, but remediable through institutional, technological and procedural reform.

(b) Union–State Financial Relations and One Nation–One Tax

The GST framework, created by the 101st Constitutional Amendment, has unified taxation but exposed Union-State financial tensions. The GST Council’s composition—Centre holding one-third voting weight and states two-thirds—reveals asymmetry: states dominate numerically, but the Centre’s fiscal weight and veto-like position in a three-fourth majority make consensus difficult. The Amendment also reduced states’ independent tax autonomy by moving goods and services taxation to a shared, council-driven regime. A major controversy is the proliferation of surcharges and cesses, which have made up roughly a fifth of the Centre’s gross tax revenue in recent years, which bypass the divisible pool and reduce states’ effective share of gross central taxes, even though the Finance Commission’s vertical devolution target is calculated as a share of the divisible pool. This creates friction between vertical devolution and horizontal distribution: states contest not only the total amount devolved but also the formula used to allocate it among states, southern states, for example, argue that the 15th Finance Commission’s use of 2011 population penalises states that controlled population growth, even though it added a demographic-performance criterion, and the 16th Finance Commission (award for 2026–31) has kept the states’ share at 41 per cent. Borrowing limits under Article 293(3), which now count off-budget borrowings, prompted Kerala to sue the Centre in 2024. The GST compensation controversy sharpened this: states were guaranteed compensation for five years at 14% annual revenue growth, but the COVID-19 shortfall forced back-to-back loans in 2020–22 and compensation ended in June 2022, while the cess continued only to repay those loans, leaving states facing lost fiscal predictability. In Union of India v. Mohit Minerals (2022) the Supreme Court held that GST Council recommendations are persuasive rather than binding, and the September 2025 rate rationalisation (GST 2.0) again raised revenue-loss concerns among states.

(c) Centre’s Role in Inter-State River Water Adjudication

For inter-State rivers, Article 262 authorises Parliament to provide for adjudication of disputes, and the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 implements this by enabling the Centre to constitute a tribunal on a state’s request when negotiations fail, Section 11 bars the jurisdiction of courts over such disputes, and a 2002 amendment set time limits for tribunals. Once a tribunal’s award is published by the Centre in the Gazette, it has the force of a Supreme Court decree. The Centre’s role is therefore procedural and limited: it initiates or facilitates adjudication but does not itself decide the merits. The River Boards Act, 1956, enacted under Entry 56 of the Union List and Article 246 for regulation and development of inter-State rivers, is a separate cooperative instrument, not an adjudicatory one, no river board has ever been constituted under it. A 2019 amendment bill proposing a single permanent tribunal with benches has not been enacted. Disputes over the Cauvery, Krishna and Mahanadi show the limits of central adjudication. In the Mahanadi case, Odisha’s suit under Article 131 (2016) led the Supreme Court to direct the Centre to constitute a tribunal, which it did in 2018, while in the Cauvery dispute the Supreme Court, having held in 2016 that it could hear appeals against tribunal awards under Article 136, modified the allocation in State of Karnataka v. State of Tamil Nadu (2018) and ordered the Cauvery Water Management Authority to implement it. Together, these cases show that the Centre can frame the process, but final authority often shifts to the Supreme Court, especially where states challenge tribunal awards or seek urgent relief.