The judiciary plays important role in Indian democracy and acts as the guardian of the Constitution. It is also entrusted with the responsibility of upholding the rule of law. It protects our fundamental rights and enables citizens to have recourse against the other branches of Government – the executive and legislative – through judicial review. Without this balance, one organ would reign supreme.

Independence is essential for a judiciary to function effectively. Judges are appointed through a transparent process and cannot be easily swayed by political expediencies. Our apex court has given many landmark decisions including in Kesavanand Bharati’s case that reiterated that some parts of the Constitution are beyond Parliament’s jurisdiction to amend.

Moreover access to justice has been widened through Public Interest Litigation. Under PIL even an ordinary citizen can approach the court on matters of public question and seek justice. This has brought in democratisation of legal process whereby voiceless people could also have access to courts, so too by the marginalised.

However, there are serious challenges which have emerged recently and which could be seen as undermining efficiency of judiciary as these relates to very concerns about delays but they direly affect possibility of timely justice.

Yet, there are some very serious challenges that have surfaced in recent past and which if looked at actually do reduce efficiency of judiciary when matters relating to the said delay itself but then these do drastically reduce even the probability of timely justice.