The judiciary: how India's courts check the state

India has one of the world's most powerful judiciaries: a Supreme Court that can strike down constitutional amendments, entertain a letter as a petition, and hear appeals from anywhere in the country at its discretion. This article maps the court system's structure, the extraordinary jurisdictions that make the Supreme Court unique, the appointments debate that never ends, and the tribunal system that got a major new member in 2025.

Key takeaways

- India has a single integrated judiciary. The Supreme Court's original jurisdiction under Article 131 covers disputes between the Union and states and between states.

- Article 136 (Special Leave Petition) lets the Court hear appeals from any court or tribunal in India at its discretion.

- The collegium system for judicial appointments emerged from the Three Judges cases; Parliament's NJAC alternative was struck down in 2015.

- Curative petitions, recognised in Rupa Hurra (2002), are the final remedy after review fails, available only on narrow grounds such as violation of natural justice.

One integrated system

Unlike the United States, India has a single integrated judiciary: the Supreme Court at the apex, High Courts in the states, and district and subordinate courts below, all interpreting the same Constitution. There are 25 High Courts. District courts handle civil and criminal cases at the district level, with the District Judge hearing civil matters and the Sessions Judge criminal ones, and Metropolitan Magistrates in the large cities. Below them sit civil judges and judicial magistrates. The Constitution also provides for Nyaya Panchayats and Lok Adalats for speedy, conciliatory justice.

The Supreme Court (Articles 124-147) consists of the Chief Justice and 33 other judges, the strength having been raised from 31 by the 2019 amendment to the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act. A judge retires at 65 and can be removed only by impeachment: a motion signed by 100 Lok Sabha or 50 Rajya Sabha members, an inquiry committee, and a two-thirds majority of members present and voting in each House. No Supreme Court judge has ever been removed.

The Supreme Court's jurisdictions

Original and exclusive (Article 131): disputes between the Union and states, or between states, come directly to the Supreme Court, to the exclusion of all other courts. This is the federal umpire jurisdiction.

Writ (Article 32): the right to move the Supreme Court for enforcement of fundamental rights is itself a fundamental right, and the Court must entertain the petition.

Appellate: the Court hears appeals in constitutional, civil and criminal matters, including where a High Court certifies a substantial question of law, and in death-sentence cases.

Advisory (Article 143): the President may refer questions of law or fact of public importance for the Court's opinion. The opinion is advisory, not binding, but it carries immense weight; references have covered the Ayodhya dispute, natural-resource allocation and the Delhi government's powers.

Review (Article 137): the Court can review its own judgments, subject to Parliament's power to legislate on the subject.

Beyond these, Article 142 lets the Court pass any decree necessary for complete justice, a power used to fill legislative gaps, and Article 141 makes its declarations of law binding on all courts in India.

SLP: the discretionary doorway

Article 136 gives the Supreme Court discretionary power to grant special leave to appeal from any judgment, decree or order of any court or tribunal in India, except military tribunals. There is no right to be heard at this stage; the Court grants leave where a substantial question of law arises or where gross injustice is shown. The SLP is what makes the Supreme Court accessible in practice: thousands of petitions arrive each year, and the Court selects the few hundred that shape the law.

Curative petitions: the last resort

When even a review petition fails, a curative petition remains. Created by the Court in Rupa Ashok Hurra (2002), it lies where a litigant can show a violation of natural justice or bias, and it is heard by the senior-most judges including those who passed the original order. Curatives are rarely entertained and even more rarely succeed, but their existence marks the outer boundary of the Court's willingness to correct itself.

PIL: justice by postcard

Public Interest Litigation, pioneered by Justices P.N. Bhagwati and V.R. Krishna Iyer in the late 1970s and 1980s, relaxed the rule of standing: any public-spirited person could approach the Court on behalf of those unable to do so. A letter could become a writ petition. PIL delivered bonded-labour releases, environmental protections and prison reforms, and later expanded into governance oversight. The Court has since cautioned against its misuse for private or political ends, insisting on bona fides and on issues genuinely affecting the public.

Appointments: the collegium and its discontents

Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts are appointed by the President on the collegium's recommendation: the Chief Justice plus the four senior-most judges for Supreme Court appointments. The system is a judicial creation, emerging from the Second (1993) and Third (1998) Judges cases, which read consultation in Article 124 as concurrence. Parliament's attempt to replace it with the National Judicial Appointments Commission was struck down in 2015 as violating judicial independence, a basic-structure feature.

The debate continues on two fronts. Transparency: the collegium's resolutions are now published, and in 2025 the Court took a further step when the Full Court resolved that judges' asset declarations would be made public, responding to long-standing demands for accountability. Representation: the higher judiciary remains overwhelmingly drawn from a narrow social base, and every appointments cycle revives the argument over diversity on the bench.

Tribunals: justice outside the courts

Articles 323A and 323B, inserted by the 42nd Amendment, authorised tribunals for service matters and for specified subjects like taxation and land reform. The Central Administrative Tribunal (1985) handles service disputes of central government employees. The system has been criticised for executive dominance in appointments and for eroding High Court jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly insisted on judicial primacy in tribunal appointments and on the High Courts' power of judicial review over tribunal decisions.

The tribunal system gained its most significant new member in 2025: the GST Appellate Tribunal. Provided for in Section 109 of the CGST Act, 2017, GSTAT was formally launched on 24 September 2025, with a Principal Bench in Delhi and 31 State Benches across 45 locations. Its four-member benches combine judicial members with technical members from the Centre and the states, reflecting GST's shared sovereignty. Hearings began in December 2025, with the deadline for filing appeals extended to 30 June 2026. For indirect-tax litigation, GSTAT is now the forum where the maturing GST regime's disputes will be settled.

Judicial review and judicial activism

Judicial review, the power to strike down laws and executive actions inconsistent with the Constitution, flows from Articles 13, 32, 136, 141, 142, 144, 226 and 227. Its high-water marks include Kesavananda (1973), which limited even constitutional amendments, and the basic-structure doctrine that followed. Judicial activism, the Court's willingness to enter governance gaps through PIL and Article 142, has delivered landmark protections but drawn the criticism that it blurs the separation of powers. The Court's own answer is that activism is legitimate where the other branches default on constitutional duties, and illegitimate where it substitutes judicial preference for democratic choice.

Three powers the article left out: contempt, the missing service, the roster

Articles 129 and 215 are the provisions that make the Supreme Court and the High Courts courts of record, with power to punish for contempt of themselves. The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 is the statute that works out the procedure, dividing contempt into civil (wilful disobedience of orders) and criminal (scandalising or obstructing the court). It is the coercive edge of the judiciary's checking function.

The All-India Judicial Service (Article 312) is the service that was never created: the Constitution lets the Rajya Sabha, by a two-thirds resolution, create an all-India service for district judges, but Parliament has never passed the enabling law. It remains the staple pending-reform point in every judicial-reforms answer.

Master of the roster is the Chief Justice of India's administrative power to constitute benches and allocate cases, affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2018. It is the hinge of the CJI's administrative role: the judicial power is collegial, but the listing power is the Chief Justice's alone.

Free legal aid: NALSA and the Article 39A promise

The National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) has been constituted under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 to monitor and evaluate the implementation of legal aid programs and to lay down policies and principles for making legal services available under the Act. It is the institutional answer to Article 39A, which directs the state to provide free legal aid so that no citizen is denied justice for want of money.

The constitutional base runs deeper than one article. Article 39A provides for free legal aid to the poor and weaker sections of society; the right to legal representation is read into the fair procedure guaranteed by Article 21; and Articles 14 and 22(1) oblige the state to secure equality before the law and a legal system that promotes justice on the basis of equal opportunity to all.

NALSA works through a three-tier network of State Legal Services Authorities, District Legal Services Authorities and Taluka Legal Services Committees. Their standing functions are to provide free and competent legal services to eligible persons, to organise Lok Adalats for amicable settlement of disputes, to run legal awareness camps in rural areas, to pay compensation to victims of crime, and to promote dispute settlement generally.

Eligibility is deliberately wide. It covers women and children, members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, industrial workmen, victims of mass disaster, violence, flood, drought, earthquake or industrial disaster, disabled persons, persons in custody, victims of trafficking and beggars, and persons whose annual income does not exceed one lakh rupees (five lakh rupees before the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee).

Delivery keeps evolving. The Tele-Law service connects beneficiaries with lawyers over video conferencing across lakhs of gram panchayats; the Nyaya Bandhu platform matches pro bono advocates with registered beneficiaries; and the Legal Aid Defence Counsel System engages full-time lawyers in hundreds of districts on the public-defender pattern for criminal cases.

Prelims hooks

• Single integrated judiciary; Supreme Court: CJI + 33 judges; retirement at 65; removal only by impeachment (two-thirds of members present and voting in each House).
• Article 131: original and exclusive jurisdiction in Union-state and inter-state disputes.
• Article 136: special leave to appeal, discretionary, from any court or tribunal except military tribunals.
• Article 143: advisory jurisdiction; the President may seek the Court's opinion, which is not binding.
• Curative petitions: Rupa Ashok Hurra (2002); last resort on grounds like violation of natural justice.
• Articles 141 (law declared binding on all courts) and 142 (complete justice).
• Collegium: CJI + 4 senior-most judges; created by the Second (1993) and Third (1998) Judges cases; NJAC struck down in 2015.
• Tribunals: Articles 323A (service) and 323B (other specified matters), inserted by the 42nd Amendment.
• GSTAT: Section 109, CGST Act 2017; launched 24 September 2025; Principal Bench in Delhi, 31 State Benches at 45 locations; four-member benches.
• 2025: Full Court resolution making judges' asset declarations public.

Mains angle

Judiciary questions test your ability to hold two truths at once: the Court is the Constitution's guardian, and its power needs guarding too. Open with the design: an independent, integrated judiciary with review powers wider than almost any counterpart, justified by the framers' distrust of transient majorities. Then trace the expansion: basic structure, PIL, Article 142, each extending the Court's reach in response to a real failure of the other branches.

The critical section should address the accountability deficit: self-appointment through the collegium, the NJAC's failure, the transparency reforms of recent years including the 2025 asset-disclosure resolution, and the representation question. Evaluate tribunals as a case study in institutional design: specialised justice versus executive capture, with GSTAT's 2025 launch as the live example. Conclude with the separation-of-powers balance: judicial independence is a basic-structure feature, but so is democratic accountability, and the Court's legitimacy ultimately rests on the discipline with which it exercises powers no text fully defines.

Key Terms

• NALSA: The National Legal Services Authority is the apex body under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 that monitors legal-aid programmes and lays down policy for making legal services available.
• Legal Aid Defence Counsel System: A NALSA initiative engaging full-time defence lawyers in districts to provide quality legal aid in criminal cases, on the public-defender pattern.
• Article 39A: The Directive Principle that directs the state to provide free legal aid and ensure no citizen is denied justice for economic or other disability.
• Tele-Law: A Department of Justice service that connects beneficiaries in gram panchayats with lawyers through video conferencing for pre-litigation advice.
• The All-India Judicial Service (Article 312) is: The All-India Judicial Service (Article 312) is the constitutionally authorised but never-created all-India service for district judges, which Parliament may establish by law once the Rajya Sabha passes a resolution with a two-thirds majority. Proposed to improve judicial quality and national integration, it has stalled over opposition from states and high courts protective of their recruitment powers. For UPSC, it is a recurring GS-2 polity and governance question on judicial reforms. The Law Commission's 116th Report (1986) recommending its creation
• Justices P.N. Bhagwati and V.R. Krishna Iyer: Justices P.N. Bhagwati and V.R. Krishna Iyer were Supreme Court judges of the late 1970s who pioneered Public Interest Litigation in India. They relaxed locus standi so that any public-spirited citizen could approach the court for the poor and voiceless, and expanded Article 21 into a charter of dignity covering speedy trial, legal aid and humane prison conditions. Their partnership reshaped the Court into an instrument of social justice, and UPSC treats PIL's origins as essential GS-2 and GS-4 material. their 1979 Hussainara Khatoon orders freeing undertrial prisoners are the classic illustration of PIL in action
• Second (1993) and Third (1998) Judges cases: The Second (1993) and Third (1998) Judges cases are the Supreme Court rulings that created the collegium system. The Second Judges case gave the Chief Justice of India primacy over the executive in appointments; the 1998 Presidential reference under Article 143 clarified that the CJI must consult a collegium of senior judges. Together they shifted appointment power from the executive to the judiciary. Every Supreme Court and High Court appointment since 1998 has followed this collegium procedure.
• Section 109 of the CGST Act, 2017: Section 109 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 is the statutory basis of the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT), India's forum for GST disputes. It mandates a Principal Bench at New Delhi and State Benches, with benches pairing judicial members with technical members drawn from tax administration. The tribunal fills the gap between departmental appeals and the High Courts. GSTAT's Principal Bench in Delhi and 31 State Benches became operational in September 2025.
• Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act: The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956 fixes the sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court, which Parliament may raise as workload grows. From eight judges in 1950, the strength was progressively increased, reaching 34, the Chief Justice plus 33 judges, through the 2019 amendment. It matters for debates on judicial capacity, pendency and access to justice. Example: the 2019 amendment expanding the court to 34 judges. the 2019 amendment expanding the court to 34 judges
• Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 is: The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 is the Indian statute defining and punishing contempt of court, divided into civil contempt (wilful disobedience of orders) and criminal contempt (scandalising or obstructing the court). Punishment can extend to six months' imprisonment or a fine up to 2,000 rupees, and a 2006 amendment made truth a valid defence. It matters for UPSC because it balances judicial dignity against freedom of speech under Article 19(2). the Supreme Court's 2020 conviction of lawyer Prashant Bhushan for criminal contempt, punished with a symbolic fine of one rupee
• Original and exclusive (Article 131): Article 131 gives the Supreme Court original and exclusive jurisdiction over disputes between the Union and states, or between states themselves, involving a question of law or fact on which a legal right depends. No other court can hear such suits, and private citizens cannot invoke it. For UPSC, it is the leading example of the Court's federal umpire role in Centre-state disputes. Kerala's 2020 original suit under Article 131 challenging the Citizenship (Amendment) Act
• Articles 129 and 215 are: Articles 129 and 215 are the provisions declaring the Supreme Court (Article 129) and every High Court (Article 215) to be courts of record. This means their judgments and proceedings have evidentiary value as legal precedents, and each court has the power to punish for contempt of itself. For UPSC, they are the constitutional source of the higher judiciary's contempt power and the authority of case law. The Supreme Court's 2020 contempt proceedings against advocate Prashant Bhushan rested on the power under Article 129.

Practice questions