The following is former Supreme Court of India judge Justice Abhay S. Oka’s speech on the accountability of the judiciary towards litigants who come seeking justice as well as how it can be ensured. He was speaking at an event by the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR) at the India International Centre in New Delhi. The Wire was the media partner for the event.§The accountability of high court and Supreme Court judges first comes from their oath of office. The oath of office enjoins judges to act without fear or favour and without affection or ill will. They take an oath to uphold the Constitution of India and the laws. After taking the oath, they become accountable to it.Judicial accountability has several dimensions: accountability in adjudication, accountability in court administration and case listing, accountability in appointments through the collegium, accountability in the transfer policy for district and trial court judges, and accountability in dealing with complaints against judges. Each dimension must be strengthened without compromising judicial independence.When we discuss accountability, judges are first and foremost accountable to litigants, who come to the court hoping for speedy and quality justice. Fortunately, all high courts in our country have a fixed roster system that assigns specific categories of cases to each bench.This way, when a litigant files a case, he knows which bench will hear his case. In high courts, the roster prepared by the Chief Justice ensures that manual intervention is ruled out. In many high courts, while finalising the roster, the Chief Justice also passes an order listing default benches where cases will go if roster judges recuse themselves.The real challenge litigants face before most high courts with substantial filing is getting freshly filed cases listed for the first hearing or for hearing at the preliminary or admission stage. Barring a few high courts, every bench has its own system of listing of freshly filed cases and after-notice cases. In some high courts, advocates have to wait in a long queue and mention newly filed cases for posting/listing. In some high courts, even when the courts/benches fix a date, the case is not necessarily listed on the cause list. Lawyers tell me that in some courts, freshly filed cases are required to be mentioned repeatedly to get listed.The only way to ensure accountability in listing fresh cases is to auto-date them. Freshly filed cases for bail or anticipatory bail must be automatically listed within a few days of filing, and all other cases must be listed automatically after one or two weeks of filing. In the Karnataka high court, during the COVID-19 pandemic period, auto-listing of freshly filed cases began on September 1, 2020.Also read: Justice Kaul Questioned the SC Collegium. Now, J&K High Court List Adds Weight to His PointBail petitions were automatically listed on the third or fourth day, and other cases on the seventh day, even if not all objections were rectified. During this period, case disposal generally exceeded filings every month.Auto-listing of freshly filed cases rules out favouritism by the registry and any possibility of arbitrariness. It assures litigants that their freshly filed cases will be listed on a particular date even if the litigant does not engage a senior counsel to mention the case for listing.The other accountability issue arises in preparing the cause list. There are many high courts where judges are permitted to restrict the number of cases on the cause list. Though dates are given for a particular day in, say, 90 cases, the judges direct the listing of only 50 cases. Thus, members of the registry can choose which cases to list and which to delete. By this method, the judges play into the registry officials’ hands.According to me, the settled principle is that the cause list is of the court and not of the judges or of the registry. Therefore, when a case is ordered to be listed on a particular date, it must be listed on that day. Whether it is taken up or not is a different matter. The minimum duty the judges owe to the litigants is to ensure that the cases are listed on the cause list on each given date. Whether the case is heard or taken up is a different matter – the litigant, at least, has satisfaction that his case was listed on the given date.This signals that a discipline is followed in listing. Cases on the cause list that are not taken up should be assigned dates at the end of the day, and the parties or lawyers should not be compelled to mention those cases to fix dates. In the Supreme Court, I had to pass a written order directing the registry not to delete any case in which my bench had fixed the date.Recently, in some high courts, the roster has become a bit complicated. One bench is assigned several categories of cases of different years, so when a case is called out, judges need to check the notified sitting list/roster and verify whether the case is assigned to their bench or another bench.Also read: ‘Judicial Accountability Without Independence is Subordination’: Kapil Sibal at CJAR EventThe roster must be such that litigants, registry staff and lawyers can easily understand it. A proper roster and strict adherence to the rule that the cause list is of the court, not of the judges, will bring accountability to the system.When it comes to the roster, the real issue lies with the country’s highest court. We must understand the object of the roster. The objective is that when a case is filed, the litigant and his advocate must know which bench his case will be listed before. A proper roster eliminates the possibility of manual intervention in listing. It leaves no choice even to the chief justice or registrar to list a particular case before a particular bench.Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has no clear roster prepared by the chief justice. Only the subjects assigned to different benches are mentioned. Many subjects are assigned to multiple benches. This is apparent from the subject list published on the Supreme Court website under the heading “Roster”.For example, Subject Category Nos. 302 to 306 of “arbitration law and other alternative dispute resolution” cases are assigned to at least three benches. Therefore, if a Special Leave Petition arises out of an order under Section 34 of the Arbitration Act, it can go to any of the three benches, and the litigant will know the bench only when it is listed.I will give another example. Subject Category Nos. 901 to 905 of “civil law” are assigned to 5 or more benches. The same applies to the subject of criminal and environmental cases. These cases have been notified as the subject of multiple benches.Therefore, when a case is filed covered by these subjects, it can be listed before any of multiple benches. The question, then, is who chooses the bench out of the three or four. Probably, the Chief Justice of India or a registry officer does this. This gives a scope for manual intervention in the listing of cases.There are instances where cases not covered by the subject list of a particular bench are assigned to that bench. If some of you remember, this is why, on two occasions while I was a sitting judge, and more particularly at my farewell by the Supreme Court Bar Association, I said that the Supreme Court is too much of a Chief Justice-centric court.The Supreme Court of India would become more accountable to litigants if it introduced a regular roster system on par with the high courts. On the administrative side, high courts work through committees of judges. Important decisions are taken either by committees of judges or by the full house.In high court administration, one of the most challenging and contentious issues is the annual general transfers of judges in taluka and district courts. In some high courts, either a committee of judges or an administrative committee of senior judges takes a decision. This is not a decision by the chief justice. In some high courts, the committee’s annual general transfer recommendations must be approved by the full house. This brings greater administrative accountability.This collective process ensures that administrative powers are not concentrated in the chief justice’s hands. This strengthens administrative accountability, though there may not be uniformity.Also read: Study of Remand Courts Reveals Role of Judicial Magistrates and Processes in Delhi’s Magistrate CourtsBut in the Supreme Court, though a few committees exist, major administrative decisions remain chief justice-centric. Given the Chief Justice of India’s all-powerful position, sometimes stakeholders indulge in hero worship of the Chief Justice of India, which is completely contrary to the ethos of our constitution. In his last speech in the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949, Dr. Ambedkar had warned us about the serious consequences of hero worship.Another area where the higher courts must become accountable. A Constitution Bench decision holds that the Supreme Court and high courts should not, as a rule, fix time-bound schedules for disposal of cases before the courts subordinate to them, and that such schedules can be imposed only in exceptional cases. Yet, the Supreme Court and high courts routinely pass such orders.When a higher court passes an order directing a court to decide a case within a time limit, the higher court is not aware of how many such cases, or older cases, are pending before the trial court. The court does not consider that there may be more deserving cases of litigants requiring out-of-turn priority. The court does not have the complete picture of the pendency situation when passing such orders.That is why, in some trial courts and sessions courts, a large number of cases have time-bound disposal schedules fixed by higher courts. Judges struggle to meet these timelines and face undue pressure to do so. I can give several illustrations.This practice results in two queues of litigants in our district judiciary and high courts. One is very long, of ordinary litigants. The other is of privileged litigants armed with an order of higher courts for an out-of-turn, expeditious hearing. This resembles what we see in a few temples. One queue of common people and the other of important persons.Therefore, I used to turn down such requests for fixing an outer limit for the disposal of cases before trial or district courts. Unfortunately, even today, Supreme Court benches fix time-bound schedules for disposing of cases pending before the high courts. Though the orders include the words “we request”, in practice, the request is a mandate.I have repeatedly raised the issue that the judiciary has not adopted a rational policy for prioritising categories of cases. If we have clear policy guidelines for deciding priorities, we will be more accountable to litigants. Only because a person is a senior citizen, only on that ground, he should not get priority in all category of cases.Another accountability issue arises from the collegium system. We may have committed mistakes while implementing the collegium system, but that does not make the system bad. Maybe those at the helm of affairs did not implement it properly. Historically, every party in power has tried to interfere with the judiciary’s independence. The extent varies. There were supersessions and candidates were imposed by the Union government.For example, in the early eighties, a secretary of the law department of the Union government with no judicial experience was appointed as a judge of the Bombay high court. The collegium system must work transparently, but publishing collegium resolutions alone does not bring transparency.Sometimes it compromises the privacy of those who are recommended. The transparency must be in the process itself. The need of the hour is to address the government’s delay in clearing appointments. If the Supreme Court does not take up this issue, who else will? A contempt petition is pending on this subject and has not been listed. The judiciary must take up this issue.Also read: In a Virtual Courtroom, Signs of Long-Awaited ChangeThe other issue is about decision-making. Every decision of the constitutional court can be constructively criticised on the ground that it does not conform to the law of the land. The quality and correctness of the decision cannot depend on whether it favours the government/establishment. If the court’s decision is correct and favours the government, one cannot attach motives to the judges.Now we see a tendency to criticise the judges only because their verdict is in favour of the establishment, though it is legally correct. This approach is not correct. There is a demand that an independent authority must examine every complaint against a judge of the high court and Supreme Court.We have an adversarial system; therefore, in every case, one of the two parties is always aggrieved by the decision. Therefore, we need to handle such demands discreetly. We cannot allow judges to remain under the constant threat of complaints followed by an enquiry.In the Bombay high court and other major high courts, my experience is that some disgruntled litigants keep sending complaints about practically every judge, and copies are addressed to the judges themselves. My experience has been that judges who are strict, deliver strong verdicts, work more and have a large disposal face more complaints than others. We need to deliberate on this issue. We need to develop a system that ensures accountability without deterring judges from discharging their duty without fear or favour.Maybe the solution is to apply rigorous filters while selecting judges. Whether that happens depends on how the collegium system functions.In seminars and functions, we discuss issues only in the high courts and the Supreme Court. We do not discuss the issues of our trial and district judiciary. To ensure accountability, the Supreme Court must lay down a uniform, rational policy for transferring our trial and district court judges. Premature transfers sometimes occur and are linked to judges granting bail or acquittals in sensitive cases.In 2002, the Supreme Court directed that India’s judge-to-population ratio must be 50 for a population of 10 lakhs. Today, in 2026, we struggle at 22 or 23. This issue must be taken up on the judicial side. Judges in the district and trial judiciary in major districts are working under enormous pressure because of this very low judge-to-population ratio. This leads people to allege a lack of accountability, arguing that judges in the trial and district judiciary are unconcerned with the huge arrears.I must thank the campaign for judicial accountability and reforms for initiating discussion on this important subject. There will be views against views. Solutions emerge only when we express ourselves. In a true democratic system, only a constructive debate paves the way for reforms.Let the debate continue at all levels. It should not remain confined to Lutyens’ Delhi. But let us not bring preconceived or prejudiced views while we discuss such important issues. At the same time, we cannot generalise the issue and brand all judges and the entire judiciary as bad.