In what can be seen as significant remarks from a key person in the government , Sanjeev Sanyal, member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC) on Saturday said that India’s judicial system is the single biggest roadblock to the country’s ambition of becoming a developed economy.
“The judicial system and the legal ecosystem, but the judicial system in particular, is now in my view the single biggest hurdle to becoming Viksit Bharat and growing rapidly,” Sanyal remarked at Nyaya Nirmaan 2025, a landmark dialogue hosted by the General Counsels’ Association of India (GCAI).
The custom of long court vacations also came under firein his speech when he remarked, “The judiciary is a public service like any other part of the state. Do you shut down the police department or hospitals for months because officers want summer vacation?”
The theme of the conclave was “Reimagining India’s Legal Foundations for Viksit Bharat @ 2047.” The event brought together ministers, judges, policymakers and industry leaders for a day-long conversation on shaping India’s legal blueprint for the future, with Sanyal making his comments in the presence of Supreme Court Justices Manmohan and Pankaj Mithal.
Sanyal argued that the “inability to enforce contracts in time or to deliver justice” has now become such a serious constraint that no amount of investment in physical infrastructure or urban development can compensate for the drag. he underscored what he called the “99-1 problem”: most of India’s rules and regulations are written to pre-empt misuse by a small fraction, simply because the legal system is not trusted to resolve those exceptions swiftly.
“Because I do not think it will get sorted out there, the rest of the 99% of laws and rules end up being complicated to address that 1%, feeding back into a spiral,” he noted.Sanyal singled out pre-litigation mediation as a case where well-intentioned reform had backfired. Referring to Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, he said that data from Mumbai’s commercial courts showed that “between 98 to 99% of pre-litigation mediation actually fails,” only adding months of delay and higher costs before cases return to the same courts.
“I have no problem with the idea of mediation.
Beyond procedure, Sanyal called for a “cultural acceptance” within the legal profession of its systemic shortcomings instead of what he described as a “self-congratulatory tone” at conferences. He criticised what he termed the “medieval guild” structure of the Bar with distinctions between senior advocates, advocates-on-record and other lawyers.“Why are all these people needed in the 21st century?…For many levels of legal work, why do you even require somebody to have a legal degree to argue your case? This is the age of AI,” he remarked. Sanyal concluded by urging the legal fraternity to “pull up your socks” and embrace reform.
Follow us
