Burning The Justice: Judicial Trust In Flames. How Deep Rooted Corrupted Is Indian Judiciary?

When we hear the phrase “temple of justice,” we’re prone to visualize a tidy, orderly spot in which justice and truth are held dear. Theoretically, that’s precisely what a court ideally should be: a robust barricade against corruption, a safe haven for victims, a refuge where the wealthy and powerful have no escape from the consequences of their actions, and the victim can get a safe haven. But as we all know, practical can never be in sync with theory, as it so often does, as recent allegations of misconduct against Indian judges are a reminder that the best institutions can succumb to the very flaws that they are intended to keep at bay.

Take the recent case of Justice Yashwant Verma. A fire in his home in Delhi led to a shocking discovery: there was lots of cash in his house. This scandal caused enormous problems for the judicial system and resulted in his transfer to the Allahabad High Court by the Supreme Court Collegium. What makes this news so upsetting is that it comes at a time when the faith of the people in the judicial system is already low. If the people who are meant to make sure justice is being served can’t keep their own homes clean—both literally and figuratively—how can we expect them to make others fall in line?

To be honest, charges of corruption within the judiciary are no new news, or let’s say an open secret. This is not the first time that a judiciary’s reputation has been compromised, and sadly, it will not be the last. The Justice Yashwant Verma scandal is only the latest chapter in a very long, sorry saga that has been unfolding for decades. More disturbing, though, is the trend that it symbolizes—a trend of impunity, of a culture where accountability is selectively applied and where the image of the judiciary as an institution of incorruptible justice is eroded, piece by piece.

A cursory glance at the past reminds us that corruption within the Indian judiciary has been a long-standing issue.

We can recall the Justice Veeraswami case, a bad precedent during the 1990s. Chief Justice of Madras High Court Justice Veeraswami was accused of having more money than he should have had according to his known income. His argument was that judges could not be prosecuted without the sanction of the Chief Justice of India.

How cleverly, the law, which was supposed to be a sword to deliver justice, became a shield to protect the accused! This rule of law provided protection to senior judges, making it extremely difficult to prosecute them. Although the Supreme Court subsequently ruled that this immunity did not apply, the damage was done. The belief that judges operated within an almost untouchable sphere persisted, aka what, in general, we call the Collegium System!

Consider another high-profile case of Justice Shamit Mukherjee in 2003. He was detained by the Central Bureau of Investigation for corruption and abuse of power to favor some land developers. The arrest of Mukherjee was shocking at the moment, not due to corruption being a new thing, but due to the fact that a sitting judge was held accountable in public. The case, though, illustrated the way the judiciary was not keen on making changes. 

And if you think it’s just a pair of cases, then don’t forget the Ghaziabad Provident Fund scam? Judges of various courts, including the Allahabad High Court, were named in a massive money theft racket involving crores of rupees extracted from provident funds of court employees. The scam disclosed how numerous judicial officers were caught up in the scam and how weak the controls for verification and accountability were. Again, the reaction was predominantly defensive. The judiciary rallied behind each other, and the people were left guessing how severe the issue actually was!

Flash forward to 2025, and it’s obvious that these past precedents have not served as a lesson. As seen till now, no one is talking about the consequences; the only thing the judges are discussing is about the transfer of the accused, Judge Verma. The Justice Yashwant Verma case may seem on the surface to be an aberration, but in light of earlier scandals, it appears more like an outlier in a disturbing trend.

Even if Verma’s transfer to the Allahabad High Court is a rebuke, it leaves uncomfortable questions unposed:

• Why was the money there in the first place? 
• Isn’t this not a one-time failure of judgment; rather a symptom of a larger, systemic chronic disease of extreme corruption in judiciary? 
• And perhaps most importantly, isn’t this fire literally burning the judicial trust among citizens of India?

The larger problem isn’t merely personal corruption; it’s also the lack of a robust system to address it. The judiciary has enormous autonomy, and it’s worth it because it must be apolitical so that it can render objective decisions. That autonomy, however, must never mean complete freedom from responsibility. Without institutional checks to enforce responsibility, that autonomy can encourage bad conduct rather than deter it.

A culture of accountability won’t take root if every scandal is met with denial, stonewalling, or just mere transfers! Similar things have been noticed in other departments as well, where the officer charged with corruption was merely arrested to silence the public and then re-introduced into the system (IAS Puja Singhal Case of Jharkhand Mining Scam).

Judicial corruption is not just a loss of the public’s trust; it’s a corruption of the foundations of democracy and damage to the third pillar of democracy! 

When judges are alleged to be on the take, all their rulings, good or bad, are suspect. Where the judiciary is typically the last refuge of the common man against a callous bureaucracy, that loss of judicial trust is nothing short of catastrophic. The judiciary must confront this problem in a concrete way, not through making symbolic gestures or alibis but through actually taking some action. Failing this, the next Justice Verma, Veeraswami, or Mukherjee will turn up sooner or later.