Justice in a democracy is not an optional service—it is a foundational promise. Yet, the Indian legal system today reflects a sobering contradiction: while there is abundant enthusiasm for alternatives like arbitration and specialized commercial courts, there is conspicuous neglect in strengthening the primary public system of dispute resolution. The result is a fragmented legal landscape that risks deepening inequality rather than curing inefficiency. 

This is not an argument against arbitration. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms serve a valuable role in decongesting courts, providing party autonomy, and enabling tailored solutions, especially in commercial contexts. Arbitration can be fast, flexible, and confidential. However, it must be understood as a supplement—not a substitute—for the state’s constitutional obligation to provide fair, affordable, and timely justice to all citizens.

The problem lies not in what arbitration offers, but in what its proliferation quietly reveals: a retreat from fixing what truly matters—the ordinary courts that serve the everyday citizen. The judicial system in India is in quiet crisis, and the promise of the Constitution is at risk of becoming a privilege rather than a right. 

In urban India today, a person seeking a divorce may spend five to ten years navigating a clogged judicial process—time that could easily constitute 10% to 25% of their adult life. For many women, particularly those from modest backgrounds, the process is not only protracted but traumatic, with repeated court appearances, emotional tolls, and the constant risk of financial vulnerability. This is not the kind of justice envisioned under Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees dignity, privacy, and personal liberty. Above all – agency. 

The same is true for land disputes, which form a significant chunk of civil litigation in non-urban India. In rural India, property conflicts may outlive the litigants themselves. Titles remain unclear, boundaries contested, and encroachments unresolved. Village-level disputes are still governed by a colonial-era land revenue system wherein administrative officers often double up as judges—despite having neither the time nor the judicial training for it. Their roles clash with executive functions, and judicial responsibility is too often sidelined by urgent bureaucratic tasks.

The failure of the civil justice system inevitably burdens the criminal justice system—ultimately, both become dysfunctional. 

What this produces is a systemic indifference to the rural litigant. There are no fast-track mechanisms for them. No specialized courts. No access to arbitration. While cities benefit from commercial courts and sophisticated legal professionals, the villager is left to the mercy of understaffed taluka courts and quasi-judicial officers – for whom the priority is the administration of the district.

This dual-speed justice system sits uneasily with constitutional ideals. Article 14 promises equality before the law. Article 39A urges the state to ensure that legal aid and access to justice are not denied on grounds of economic disability. Yet, today’s judicial policy often caters to the needs of business with urgency, while issues of subsistence for the poor remain buried in procedural backlog.

To my mind, the creation of commercial courts is a telling development. Intended to expedite high-value economic disputes, these courts are technologically advanced, efficiently staffed, and procedurally streamlined. But they have been designed with the market in mind, not the public. Their structure makes implicit a belief that time-bound justice is a premium service—available if you can afford it.

Contrast this with the experience of the average citizen who files a civil suit for recovery of wages, or a family trying to resolve a tenancy conflict, or a woman seeking maintenance. These cases do not attract judicial urgency, nor do they receive institutional investment. The result is that justice becomes stratified: expeditious for the few, elusive for the many.

The overwhelming emphasis on arbitration as an institutional preference also raises a deeper constitutional concern. Arbitration, by design, is a private process. It lacks public transparency, often excludes weaker parties from negotiating terms on equal footing, and offers no precedential value to guide future conduct. The ‘justice’ it dispenses is limited to the parties involved and devoid of public accountability and the general public does not benefit from it. Except that a reliable arbitration system can bring better investments – but apart from that even the Government seems to have abandoned arbitration – which has become nothing but a first step in litigation.

It must be remembered that courts are not merely dispute resolvers; they are constitutional spaces where the state affirms the rule of law. They generate jurisprudence, evolve rights, and bind future conduct. A healthy judicial system is the spine of constitutional democracy. Replacing it with a model that thrives behind closed doors may address efficiency but at the cost of eroding public confidence.

The Constitution does not imagine a fragmented justice system. It envisions one where rights are real, where the poor have equal standing with the rich, and where justice is not a function of financial or social capital. But today, the lack of investment in basic judicial infrastructure—such as courtrooms, judges, and case management systems—suggests that we are content to let the primary justice system decay, as long as elites have a working alternative.

This posture is deeply troubling. For the millions who cannot opt for arbitration or afford commercial litigation, justice remains slow, uncertain, and emotionally exhausting. They are caught in a web of adjournments, procedural complexity, and unresponsive institutions. And yet, legal reform debates tend to focus more on international arbitration norms than on the reform of lower courts that serve 90% of our litigants.

 I firmly believe that the way forward must involve a shift in priorities. We must invest in the architecture of everyday justice. This means hiring more judges, digitizing records in rural courts, simplifying procedures in family and civil courts, and ensuring that administrative tribunals and revenue courts function independently and efficiently. We must reform not just the law, but the legal experience.  The rechristening, for example, of the Indian Penal Code is a missed and a wasted opportunity. 

ADR must continue to grow—but it must not grow at the cost of abandoning the ordinary citizen. Commercial courts can thrive—but not while ordinary civil courts atrophy. The urgency of reform must extend beyond economic disputes and extend to personal liberty, civil dignity, and property rights of the poor.

We have to make the civil justice process work, because only then the criminalisation of civil disputes end.

If we measure justice not by the speed at which businesses resolve their disputes but by how swiftly a woman gets maintenance, or how quickly a landless farmer receives title, or how soon a marriage is dissolved with dignity, then we must admit: the Indian justice system is failing. And this failure cannot be papered over with private alternatives.

Political democracy must rest on a foundation of social and economic justice. When the legal system forgets this, the rule of law becomes a shell. To reclaim the promise of the Constitution, we must fix what is broken—not just find ways around it. The silence around systemic judicial reform must end. Because justice, delayed as it is today, is no longer just denied—it is deferred without apology.