Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Monday underscored that the legitimacy of the judicial process rests not merely on the correctness of adjudication, but equally on its visible fairness, transparency and institutional credibility, observing that justice must not only be done but must also be demonstrably seen to be done.
Delivering the 6th Ram Jethmalani Memorial Lecture on “Justice Seen to Be Done: Transparency and Public Trust as Pillars of the Legal System” at The Leela Palace, the CJI drew upon the extraordinary life and legal career of the veteran advocate to examine the constitutional relationship between transparency, accountability and public confidence in the justice delivery system.
Tracing Jethmalani’s remarkable journey—from securing a special licence to practise law at the age of 18 after successfully challenging the rule prescribing 21 as the minimum age for legal practice, to arriving in Bombay as a Partition refugee with little more than his intellect, resilience and professional acumen the CJI noted that Jethmalani consciously chose to remain on the side of the Bar even as several of his contemporaries ascended the judicial hierarchy.
The CJI structured his address around three defining episodes from Jethmalani’s career, each offering a distinct insight into the relationship between justice and public perception.
Recalling the 1959 K.M. Nanavati trial, in which Jethmalani appeared on a watching brief, Justice Surya Kant observed that the proceedings commanded extraordinary public attention despite the absence of contemporary social-media ecosystems.
The CJI cautioned against equating transparency merely with greater visibility. Public scrutiny, he noted, does not automatically translate into a fair understanding of judicial proceedings.
He observed that a courtroom exposed to a press operating with its own sympathies and predispositions is not necessarily synonymous with a courtroom in which justice is perceived impartially. The principle that justice must be “seen to be done”, therefore, operates as an institutional discipline rather than merely as an invitation to greater publicity.
The second episode was Jethmalani’s confrontation with executive authority during the Emergency. As Chairman of the Bar Council of India, Jethmalani criticised the government in Kerala in 1976 and subsequently faced an arrest warrant. His legal defence was mounted by nearly 300 lawyers led by the legendary Nani Palkhivala.
For the CJI, the episode illustrated the constitutional role of an independent Bar in safeguarding civil liberties and preserving the adversarial foundations of the rule of law, particularly during periods when institutional freedoms come under strain.
The third milestone concerned Jethmalani’s 2003 memorial lecture for Palkhivala, in which he invoked American jurist Jerome Frank’s proposition that governmental institutions are not diminished by allowing citizens to see how they function.
Justice Surya Kant linked that philosophy to the Supreme Court’s landmark Ram Jethmalani v. Union of India judgment of 2011, in which the Court directed the constitution of a Special Investigation Team to investigate issues concerning black money and rejected an approach founded upon excessive secrecy under tax treaties.
According to the CJI, the judgment conveyed a fundamental constitutional message: where matters of overwhelming public consequence are concerned, confidentiality cannot become a substitute for institutional accountability.
Elaborating upon the central theme of his lecture, Justice Surya Kant emphasised that judicial transparency cannot be reduced to open courtrooms or publicly pronounced orders.
“A Court that announces its verdicts but keeps its reasoning to itself has not really been transparent,” he said.
The CJI also drew a crucial distinction between public trust and public approval, stressing that the judiciary does not derive legitimacy from popularity or from delivering outcomes that conform to public expectations.
“A Court does not earn trust by being liked,” he said, emphasising that the true test of institutional credibility lies in whether even a litigant who has lost a case continues to believe that the adjudicatory process was fair, impartial and procedurally legitimate.
Justice Surya Kant invoked the celebrated 1924 English decision in Rex v. Sussex Justices, which crystallised the enduring maxim that justice must not only be done but must also be seen to be done. The principle, he said, requires courts to remain conscious not only of the substantive correctness of their decisions but also of how those decisions are perceived by those subject to them.
Referring to empirical research concerning compliance with law, the CJI noted that individuals who lose cases but perceive the decision-making process as procedurally fair tend to retain levels of institutional confidence approaching those who prevail.
Turning from constitutional principle to judicial administration, Justice Surya Kant identified access to justice as the first practical dimension of transparency. For citizens, particularly those from rural and economically disadvantaged backgrounds, transparency has little meaning if the justice system itself remains inaccessible.
He referred to several technological and institutional initiatives, including the eCourts single sign-on portal, electronic service of summons and integration of prison and court records, which can ensure that judicial orders—particularly bail orders—do not become ineffective because of administrative disconnects between institutions.
The CJI also highlighted the rollout of e-Sewa Kendra mobile vans on September 4, aimed at taking legal assistance and judicial services directly to citizens. These initiatives, he said, reflect the Supreme Court’s continuing transformation into what he described as a “Commoner’s Court”—an institution increasingly oriented towards the ordinary litigant rather than merely the legally sophisticated.
The second practical imperative, he said, is timeliness in adjudication.
Drawing attention to the problem of judgments remaining reserved for prolonged periods, particularly in matters involving personal liberty, Justice Surya Kant referred to the Supreme Court’s decision in Pila Pahan v. State of Jharkhand, decided in May 2026.
The Court, he noted, directed that reserved judgments should ordinarily be pronounced within three months and required High Court websites to publicly display the dates on which judgments were reserved and subsequently delivered. Such institutional disclosure, he observed, would ensure that judicial delay does not remain invisible to the public.
Concluding his address with a reference to Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist No. 78, the CJI recalled the classical description of the judiciary as possessing “neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment”.
The judiciary, he said, ultimately depends upon the willingness of citizens to accept and comply with its decisions. That willingness, in turn, is sustained by institutional legitimacy and public confidence.
“Public trust is not decoration,” Justice Surya Kant said, describing it as the essential currency of judicial authority and the foundation upon which the legitimacy of the judiciary ultimately rests.
Paying tribute to Ram Jethmalani, the CJI said that truly honouring the legendary advocate would require institutions to embody the principles to which he remained committed—constitutionalism, accountability, fearless advocacy and an unwavering commitment to the rule of law.
Justice, he emphasised, must therefore not remain an abstract conclusion recorded in a judgment. It must be capable of being seen, understood and experienced as fair through every facet of the judicial process.
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