Judicial reforms are essential to maintain rule of law: VIT Chancellor

The founder and chancellor of Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), G. Viswanathan, on Wednesday said that reforms in the judiciary remain essential for a democratic country like India to bring necessary changes in upkeep of the rule of law.

Speaking at Advocate V.C. Rajagopalachariar (VCR) Memorial Lecture, which was organised by VIT at its campus here, Mr. Viswanathan said that judicial reforms are urgently needed in India as pending cases before courts in the country is increasing everyday.

For example, around 5.3 crore cases are pending before various courts in the country as of November 2025. Of these, 1.7 lakh cases have been pending for over 30 years. “In its report in 2018, NITI Aayog had said that it would take more than 324 years to clear the backlog when the pendency was 2.9 crore cases. Without judicial reforms, the crisis cannot be addressed,” he said.

The chancellor said that courts should ensure speedy justice to victims as the number of undertrials, without an opportunity to hear their cases, is on the rise. For instance, Jammu & Kashmir has 96% of its total undertrials behind bars without trial, followed by Maharashtra (85%) and Bihar (87%). “Lack of a specific time frame to handle cases and shortage of judges in all courts are reasons for the huge backlog of cases. For example, India has only 15 judges per million population as against 300 judges in China, 150 judges (USA) and 57 (England),” he said.

Former Supreme Court judge Justice (retd) Sanjay Kishan Kaul, and Sekar Viswanathan, vice-president, VIT, were present on the occasion.