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A Japanese investor recently withdrew a $400-million manufacturing project from Maharashtra.
Not because of land disputes or labour trouble, but because of one word — justice.
His legal team spent three years chasing a simple commercial injunction through forty-seven hearings. Each time, the clerk repeated the same benediction: “Next date, next date.”
The investor finally said, “If your courts move like this, your economy can’t.”
He was right. The world is sprinting on algorithms; we are still crawling on adjournments.
The slowest wheels in the fastest economy
India calls itself the world’s growth engine. Step into any courtroom and that engine sputters. Files yellow. Witnesses age. Lawyers grow grey waiting for “the matter to be called.”
Justice here doesn’t crawl — it reclines.
Adjournments are our national narcotic. The Code of Civil Procedure says three. The practice says infinite. The excuses are legendary: “My senior is not available.” “The file is missing.” “The witness is on pilgrimage.”
The absurdity would be comic if it weren’t tragic.
Our courts have normalised delay to the point of dysfunction. The judge sighs, the lawyer bows, the litigant pays — a ritual of postponement masquerading as process.
The cost of each yawn
Every adjournment drains the litigant, the investor, and the nation’s reputation. Each wasted day piles up fees, travel and lost wages. The poor pawn jewellery; the rich relocate disputes abroad.
Governments are the worst offenders, seeking adjournments by reflex. Judges, buried under dockets, indulge them. The result: more than five crore pending cases.
We shrug, as if delay were a divine right.
India celebrates its Chandrayaan missions but cannot complete a murder trial before the accused dies of old age.
We orbit the Moon but cannot orbit common sense.
Perception is the new policy
Foreign investors don’t just read India’s GDP charts; they read its courts. They ask: Can India enforce a contract? Will my case be decided before my retirement?
When the answer is “probably not,” capital flees faster than any regulation can stop it. A sluggish justice system is not merely inefficient — it is an anti-growth policy.
India ranks 163rd in the world for contract enforcement. That’s not a number. That’s a verdict. It says: invest here at your own peril.
Investors don’t fear taxation or bureaucracy half as much as they fear unpredictability.
A justice system that naps through disputes is the ultimate deterrent.
Perception matters — and right now, India looks like a country that moves at the speed of its summons — where only the sluggish, squeaky ceiling fan moves.
Shared guilt: bar, bench and bureaucracy
Lawyers treat delay as strategy. Judges tolerate it as courtesy. Governments multiply it through mindless litigation.
Every actor is complicit in the slow assassination of the Rule of Law.
Each adjournment whispers to citizens: your rights can wait.
Each deferment tells investors: your contracts can rot.
And every courtroom nap tells the world: India’s ambition outruns its institutions.
We have converted lethargy into legal culture. Efficiency into exception.
The Bar and the Bench together have turned justice into a leisurely afternoon picnic on the taxpayer’s lawn.
Meanwhile, citizens pay. Businesses flee. Faith decays.
Wake up before the rot spreads
The cure is neither complex nor cosmic. Enforce the rules already written.
Three adjournments — no more. Record reasons for every delay.
Impose real costs, not token ₹500 fines.
Digitise case calendars. Track and publish adjournment data by court and by judge.
Government litigation needs a revolution. Ministries that treat courts as file-extension counters must be held financially liable for wasting judicial time.
Judges must reclaim control of their courtrooms.
Lawyers must rediscover the dignity of readiness.
And the public must stop treating delay as destiny.
Justice delayed is no longer justice denied — it is development denied.
India cannot march into the future with a judiciary anchored in the past.
We cannot seek global capital while projecting procedural chaos.
The law must run as fast as the economy it governs.
Wake up, Your Lordships
The Constitution does not promise justice “whenever convenient.”
It promises justice. Period.
A nation that can launch satellites should not stumble over summons.
Our courtrooms smell of sweat and putrid air, where white collars, black coats and yawns outnumber judgments.
So, wake up, Your Lordships.
The Rule of Law is decomposing — quietly, slowly, fatally. And when justice sleeps, the Republic decays with it.
Mohan Murti, FICA
Advocate & International Industry Arbitrator; Former Managing Director – Europe, Reliance Industries Ltd., Germany
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.