“An Unaccountable Bench: How India’s Judiciary Casts Itself as the Last Bastion Against ‘Majoritarian’ Hordes” reversethegaze.substack.com, March 13, 2026
“Allegations of corruption and misconduct against Indian judges surface with disturbing regularity, yet almost none are ever tested in a transparent, public process. Complaints ranging from the cash‑at‑home scandal involving Delhi High Court judge Yashwant Varma to detailed accusations of shady property deals and bail‑for‑cash against future CJI Surya Kant disappear into a collegium‑run black box, insulated by doctrines of confidentiality and “judicial independence.” The result is a system that demands deference from 1.4 billion citizens while offering almost no visible accountability in return.
Allegations Without Answers
A detailed investigation into CJI Surya Kant’s career traces sworn complaints dating back to 2012 and 2017, accusing him of involvement in undervalued real‑estate deals involving large cash payments and alleged tax evasion, and of taking bribes through intermediaries to grant bail in narcotics cases while he was a Punjab & Haryana High Court judge. The sheer range of prime properties he is alleged to have traded in—including farmhouses in Panchkula and Himachal—would, by itself, warrant the most rigorous and transparent scrutiny. According to the report, these complaints reached the Supreme Court’s collegium but were not subjected to any visible, independent inquiry before he was promoted—first as chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, then as a judge of the Supreme Court, and eventually as chief justice of India
To be fair – Justice Surya Kant has not been found guilty in any court, but neither has he been publicly exonerated. And therein lies the deeper problem: the current Indian Republic offers almost no credible way to resolve such allegations. The “in‑house procedure” adopted by the Supreme Court allows the chief justice and senior judges to examine complaints confidentially and, at most, ask a colleague to resign or quietly withdraw their judicial work. The inquiry reports are secret. Parliament has never successfully impeached a sitting judge for corruption, despite over 1,600 complaints of judicial misconduct forwarded to chief justices between 2017 and 2021…..”
Read the full article on reversethegaze.substack.com
