Judicial system is biggest hurdle to Viksit Bharat: PM EAC member Sanjeev Sanyal

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 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. But to make it mandatory has caused the problem…all you have achieved is added six months to the process. Why not make this simply voluntary?” he asked, adding that it took interventions by him and others before a similar clause was dropped from the Mediation Act, 2023.

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 layers.

“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.

He also took aim at colonial-era court language and practices.

“You cannot have a profession where you use words like ‘my lord’, or when you’re doing a petition it’s called a prayer. You’ve got to be kidding me. We are all citizens of the same democratic republic,” he said.

The custom of long court vacations also came under fire:

“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?”

Sanyal concluded by urging the legal fraternity to “pull up your socks” and embrace reform.

“We as a people have about 20-25 years to make it. We don’t have time to waste. You’re as much citizens as I am…dear fellow citizens, the moment has come. We are the generation we were waiting for. Nobody else is going to do this. It’s between you and me. We’re on the same ship,” he said.

He reminded the audience that he had spoken with equal bluntness to bureaucrats, chartered accountants and even fellow economists in the past, and that change only comes from “willingness to question things from first principles.”