Courtroom Chaos is a Symptom–The deeper crisis in India’s Judiciary

A Courtroom Outburst—and a Larger Question

On July 10, 2026, an extraordinary disruption occurred during a hearing before a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices K. V. Viswanathan and Alok Aradhe. A petitioner appearing in person, identified in news reports as Prabal Pratap, demanded that the Court direct the registration of a First Information Report (FIR), described himself as “the sovereign,” referred to judges as “judicial servants,” threw case papers in the courtroom, and used abusive language against Chief Justice of India Surya Kant. Security personnel removed him from the courtroom. The bench reportedly declined to initiate contempt or coercive proceedings, observing that he appeared disturbed and frustrated.

The incident should not be romanticized or excused. A court cannot function when participants threaten, abuse, or physically disrupt proceedings. Yet it would also be too easy to treat the episode as nothing more than the misconduct of one aggrieved litigant. The more difficult question is whether such eruptions are entirely isolated—or whether they emerge from a justice system that often appears inaccessible, hurried, intimidating, and overwhelmed.

Courtroom disorder is not proof of institutional failure by itself. But it can be a warning signal. When citizens encounter years of delay, complex procedure, expensive representation, and compressed hearings, frustration can accumulate. The July 10 episode therefore invites two simultaneous conclusions: decorum must be protected, and the conditions that produce deep public alienation must be examined.

The Optics of the Supreme Court on a High-Pressure Day

On a heavy admission or miscellaneous day, proceedings in the Indian Supreme Court can appear strikingly different from the solemn, measured deliberation many citizens expect from a nation’s apex court. Lawyers compete to be heard, several matters are called in rapid succession, judges interrupt to identify the decisive issue, and counsel respond in compressed bursts. To an unfamiliar observer, the courtroom may resemble a crowded marketplace or a high-decibel television debate.

That impression does not mean that judges and advocates are incapable of following the argument. Experienced participants often navigate the pace efficiently. Nevertheless, the visible dissonance is produced by identifiable structural pressures.

• Heavy Reliance on Oral Advocacy

Indian appellate practice gives substantial importance to oral advocacy. Written pleadings and submissions matter, but hearings frequently remain interactive and lawyer-driven. Unlike the United States Supreme Court, where ordinary oral argument is generally allotted thirty minutes to each side, the Indian Supreme Court does not apply a single, uniform public timer to every category of hearing. In crowded lists, this can produce an informal contest for judicial attention, particularly when several senior advocates appear in the same matter.

• The Admission Burden

The Supreme Court is not confined to a small annual docket of constitutional cases. Through special-leave jurisdiction and numerous statutory routes, it receives a vast range of civil, criminal, commercial, service, family, and regulatory disputes. Many petitions must first be heard briefly so that the Court can decide whether they deserve fuller consideration. When dozens of matters are listed before a bench, each case may receive only a narrow window in which counsel must identify the alleged error and the relief sought.

• Rapid, Multi-Party Interchange

Indian hearings are often conversational rather than sequential. Judges test propositions, counsel answer immediately, opposing lawyers intervene, and the bench may move quickly between facts, maintainability, interim relief, and the governing precedent. This style can be intellectually productive, but when too many advocates speak at once it diminishes clarity, disadvantages less powerful lawyers and self-represented litigants, and makes the institution appear less controlled than it should.

• D. Publicity and Performative Advocacy

Public-interest litigation, constitutional disputes, live reporting, and the circulation of courtroom exchanges on digital platforms have transformed the courtroom into a highly visible public stage. Public scrutiny is valuable, but visibility can also reward dramatic phrasing and instant headlines. Advocacy then risks becoming performative: the objective shifts from assisting the bench to securing a memorable moment “on the record.”

Dissonance Is Not Democratic Accessibility

Defenders of the prevailing culture may describe its intensity as evidence of an open and accessible judiciary. That defense is only partly persuasive. Accessibility is not measured by noise, informality, or the ability of elite counsel to dominate a hearing. A genuinely accessible court enables every litigant to understand the process, present a case within fair limits, receive a reasoned decision, and obtain justice without ruinous delay.

What appears as courtroom cacophony is better understood as a visible symptom of three deeper conditions: excessive docket pressure, insufficient procedural discipline, and an institutional design that still carries elements of colonial hierarchy. The problem is not that oral argument is energetic. The problem is that energy too often substitutes for orderly, equal, and transparent adjudication.

The Colonial Inheritance

India’s modern judicial architecture did not begin in 1950 on an empty foundation. The Regulating Act of 1773 authorized the creation of the Supreme Court at Fort William; the Indian High Courts Act of 1861 reorganized colonial superior courts; and the Federal Court was established under the Government of India Act, 1935. The Constitution created the Supreme Court of India, which came into existence on January 26, 1950 and was formally inaugurated on January 28, 1950. The constitutional Court was new, but it necessarily inherited personnel, procedures, professional hierarchies, and legal habits from the preceding system.

Continuity was understandable in a newly independent state that required functioning institutions. Continuity, however, should not become immunity from redesign. Colonial courts were constructed within an imperial order in which authority flowed downward and subjects approached the state for relief. A democratic republic requires the reverse moral orientation: public institutions derive authority from citizens and must justify the manner in which that authority is exercised.

The replacement of the Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, and Indian Evidence Act by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam from July 1, 2024 was a major legislative change. Yet decolonization cannot be measured by titles alone. The meaningful test is whether law and procedure become faster, clearer, more rights-protective, less hierarchical, and more accountable to citizens.

Structural Overreach and Unequal Voice

As of March 9, 2026, official data recorded approximately 64 lakh pending cases in the High Courts and 4.95 crore in district and subordinate courts. These figures do not all sit before the Supreme Court, but they reveal the scale of the national system from which appeals and special-leave petitions arise. The apex court must simultaneously protect constitutional rights, resolve conflicts of law, supervise judicial administration, and decide whether to intervene in a vast stream of individual disputes.

This combination of constitutional court and general final appellate court creates institutional congestion. It also amplifies inequality within the courtroom. A small group of highly prominent senior advocates can command disproportionate time, familiarity, and attention, while ordinary counsel and parties appearing in person may struggle to present even the essential point. The result can resemble a marketplace—not because justice is literally sold, but because scarce judicial attention is competed for through reputation, speed, volume, and access.

A Dharmic democratic understanding of justice would emphasize duty, restraint, truthfulness, proportionality, and accountability. Such an ethical foundation need not displace constitutional rights or pluralism. Properly framed, it can deepen the republican principle that power is a trust and that every office-holder—including a judge, minister, police officer, or advocate—has an obligation to serve justice rather than status.

A Blueprint for Structural Decolonization

The answer is not harsher courtroom policing alone. Nor is it another change of terminology. India requires institutional reconstruction that protects decorum while reducing the pressures and inequalities that undermine it.

1. Separate constitutional adjudication from routine appellate screening: The Supreme Court should devote its principal institutional capacity to constitutional questions, conflicts among High Courts, and matters of national importance. Regional or national appellate courts could absorb a substantial share of ordinary final appeals, reducing travel costs and allowing the Supreme Court to function as a true constitutional court.
2. Introduce disciplined hearing protocols: Different categories of matters should have presumptive time limits, subject to extension by the bench. Lead counsel should be identified in advance; overlapping submissions should be restricted; and concise written propositions should be required in substantial matters. Time discipline must apply equally to eminent and junior counsel.
3. Use randomized bench allocation with safeguards: After conflicts, subject-matter specialization, and judicial availability are accounted for, bench composition should be generated through a publicly auditable system. Randomization would reduce reasonable suspicions of bench selection or “judge-shopping,” while published exceptions would preserve necessary administrative flexibility.
4. Reform judicial appointments: The collegium system should be replaced or substantially redesigned through transparent criteria, recorded reasons, structured peer evaluation, conflict-of-interest disclosure, and a confirmation process insulated from both judicial self-perpetuation and partisan capture. Any parliamentary role should be distributed and procedurally constrained rather than controlled by a temporary majority.
5. Adopt fixed, non-renewable terms with a post-retirement barrier: A single substantial term—such as twelve years—would reduce long-term entrenchment while preserving independence. A meaningful cooling-off period should ordinarily prohibit government appointments after retirement, except for narrowly defined constitutional or judicial functions established in advance by law.
6. Establish independent judicial accountability: A Judicial Oversight Council of India should receive complaints, conduct preliminary screening, publish aggregate data, and refer serious cases to an independent adjudicatory process. Safeguards must protect judges from retaliatory complaints, but proven corruption or grave misconduct should permit removal, loss of improper benefits, and criminal prosecution under ordinary law.
7. Make judgments and procedure intelligible: Every major judgment should include an authoritative plain-language summary stating the questions presented, the holding, the principal reasons, and the practical consequences. Court notices, filing requirements, and reasons for procedural rejection should also be available in clear language and, where practicable, in Indian languages.
8. Give self-represented litigants structured assistance: A dedicated office should screen petitions presented in person, explain procedural defects, connect eligible litigants with legal aid, and identify matters involving urgent liberty or safety concerns. Assistance would not guarantee admission; it would ensure that frustration is not intensified by avoidable opacity.

Reclaiming Justice for the People

The Preamble begins with “We, the People of India.” Those words describe the source of constitutional authority. They do not authorize litigants to intimidate judges, and they do not reduce judges to servants of individual demands. They mean that the judiciary, like every democratic institution, exists to administer justice on behalf of the people under the Constitution.

Courtroom decorum must therefore be reciprocal. Litigants and lawyers owe the court honesty, restraint, and respect. The court owes citizens equal hearing, understandable procedure, reasoned decisions, and institutional self-discipline. Authority without accountability becomes domination; grievance without restraint becomes disorder.

The July 10, 2026 outburst should not become a spectacle that is discussed briefly and forgotten. It should prompt a sober inquiry into both personal responsibility and institutional design. True judicial decolonization is not a rejection of everything inherited from the past. It is the deliberate reconstruction of institutions so that hierarchy gives way to service, opacity to intelligibility, influence to equality, and procedural frenzy to disciplined justice.

Reclaiming the courts for their constitutional owners—the citizens—is unfinished work of independence.

(This article is written by Ryan Baidya, Ph.D., MBA, Takshila Foundation, San Jose, California, USA. This is an opinionated article; EPN has nothing to do with this editorial.)