Demystifying top court of country and its functioning

In recent years, there has been a growing concern that the Supreme Court of India is not firing on all cylinders. Critics have argued that the court functions in an opaque manner, exhibits excessive deference to the executive, is sluggish in concluding cases, and is hampered by an excessive reliance on super-lawyers who can get their cases heard for exorbitant fees.

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A new book, Court on Trial: A Data-Driven Account of the Supreme Court of India, examines each of these critiques, using hard data from the court's own functioning. One of the co-authors of this new book, Aparna Chandra, was the featured guest on last week's episode of "Grand Tamasha," a weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Chandra, who is an associate professor of law at the National Law School of India and has previously worked at the National Judicial Academy in Bhopal and the National Law University in Delhi, shared her views on the institutional crisis facing the court, the court's lengthy backlog, and the arbitrary powers of the chief justice.