Author(s): Suryabhan Sangram Ingle and Priyanka Shrinivas Kulkarni
Paper Details: Volume 4, Issue 4
Citation: IJLSSS 4(4) 03
Page No: 21 – 32
ABSTRACT
Bharat Mata’s promise of equal justice for every citizen remains incomplete while her courts carry more than fifty-six million pending cases and her judge-to-population ratio of barely twenty-one to twenty-two per million lags far behind global benchmarks. This article undertakes a socio-legal examination of how judicial overload, the misuse of protective legal provisions, internalized patriarchy, and distorted gender narratives interact to weaken both the rule of law and social harmony in contemporary India. Using the Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling in Shivangi Bansal v. Sahib Bansal as a doctrinal anchor, the paper argues that legislative reform alone cannot resolve a crisis that is simultaneously legal, psychological, and ethical. It identifies the silent suffering of children caught in prolonged matrimonial litigation, and the multi-crore economic cost of pendency, as urgent dimensions of national interest, situating India’s domestic reform agenda within the framework of UN Sustainable Development Goal 16. The article proposes an original three-tier framework – the Nyaya-Samrasta Model – combining grassroots paralegal mediation, expanded Family Welfare Committees, and a national gender-justice and judicial-efficiency council. We conclude that only a synthesis of legal reform, ethical citizenship, and constitutional values can deliver Bharat Mata’s daughters and sons the timely, balanced justice the Constitution promises.
Keywords: Judicial Overload; Misuse of Law; Section 498A; Internalized Patriarchy; Distorted Gender Narratives; Social Accountability; Nyaya-Samrasta; Bharat Mata.
I. INTRODUCTION: BHARAT MATA’S UNFINISHED PROMISE OF JUSTICE
Bharat Mata has always been envisioned as a mother who shelters every child equally, regardless of gender, and who expects from each child both rights and responsibility in return. The Constitution promised “JUSTICE, social, economic and political” to every citizen,[1] yet that promise remains incomplete for millions standing in courtroom queues today. As of June 2026, more than fifty-six million cases remain pending across India’s courts,[2] a backlog so vast that, at earlier disposal rates, clearing it was once estimated to take over three centuries.[3] At the same moment, provisions enacted to protect India’s daughters from cruelty and dowry harassment are, in a growing number of instances, being stretched beyond their protective purpose – a pattern the Supreme Court has itself repeatedly flagged.[4] Beneath both crises lies something less visible than a case number: a society still negotiating between old patriarchal habits and a public conversation on gender that, while correcting historic wrongs, sometimes hardens into its own form of distortion. This article argues that judicial overload, misuse of law, internalized patriarchy, and distorted gender narratives are not separate problems to be solved statute by statute, but interlocking symptoms of one deficit – eroding ethical and social accountability among citizens, institutions, and the State alike. We propose that only an integrated socio-legal response, combining reform with responsibility, can restore to Bharat Mata’s sons and daughters the timely, balanced justice the Constitution envisions.
II. THE CRISIS OF JUDICIAL OVERLOAD
Timely justice is the foundation of a citizen’s faith in the rule of law; commentators tracking the issue note that denial of timely justice amounts, in substance, to a denial of justice itself.[5] Today, more than fifty-six million cases remain undecided nationwide, including nearly forty-eight million in district and subordinate courts alone.[6] The Supreme Court’s own docket reached a record 93,143 pending matters by March 2026, prompting the President to promulgate an Ordinance in May 2026 raising the apex court’s sanctioned strength from thirty-four to thirty-eight judges.[7] Yet observers have cautioned that additional judges alone will not cure a backlog rooted in deeper structural causes – frequent adjournments, weak case-management systems, and a flow of Special Leave Petitions that turns the Supreme Court into something closer to a court of first appeal than a constitutional court.[8] The shortage is felt most acutely where ordinary citizens interact with the system: India’s judge-to-population ratio stands at approximately 21 judges per million people, far below the fifty per million recommended by the Law Commission’s 120th Report in 1987 – a target the country has pursued for nearly four decades without reaching even half-way.[9] Roughly a fifth of judicial posts in the subordinate judiciary remain vacant at any given time.[10] For the common citizen, this is not an abstract statistic; it means a labourer waiting a decade for compensation, a mother waiting years for a custody order, or an undertrial spending more time in jail than the sentence they might eventually receive. Pendency alone is estimated to cost the Indian economy more than two per cent of its GDP every year,[11] a direct drag on the very economic ambitions Bharat Mata’s children carry forward into Amrit Kaal.
III. WHEN SHIELDS BECOME SWORDS: MISUSE OF PROTECTIVE LEGAL PROVISIONS
Into this overstretched system flows a second, avoidable stream of litigation. Section 498A of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code – now reflected in Sections 85 and 86 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023[12] – was enacted to protect married women from cruelty and dowry harassment, and “cruelty by husband or relatives” remains the single largest category of crime against women, accounting for twenty-seven per cent of all such cases recorded by the National Crime Records Bureau in 2024.[13] Genuine victims unquestionably need this protection: the conviction rate for rape stood at only 27.8 per cent in 2022,[14] and the National Family Health Survey found that nearly a third of ever-married Indian women report having faced physical, sexual, or emotional violence from a husband in their lifetime[15] – far more than official crime data alone captures. Yet the Supreme Court has, in case after recent case, identified a parallel pattern of vague, “omnibus” complaints implicating entire families – parents-in-law, distant relatives, even neighbours – without specific allegations against any of them.[16] In Shivangi Bansal v. Sahib Bansal (2025), the Court invoked Article 142 of the Constitution to mandate, nationwide, a two-month “cooling-off” period and compulsory screening by District Family Welfare Committees before any arrest under Section 498A,[17] while simultaneously affirming that genuine complaints of cruelty and dowry harassment must be taken seriously.[18] National Crime Records Bureau figures capture this very tension: reported offences under Section 498A rose from 1,13,403 in 2015 to 1,40,019 in 2022, even as arrests fell from 1,87,067 to 1,45,095 over the same period[19] – courts and police visibly learning to separate genuine cruelty from vexatious litigation, even as the disputes themselves continue consuming judicial time. Every wrongly implicated relative dragged through a years-long trial is, inescapably, also a delay imposed on a genuine victim waiting for her own case to be heard.
IV. INTERNALIZED PATRIARCHY AND DISTORTED GENDER NARRATIVES
Law, however, is only the visible surface of a deeper social condition. Internalized patriarchy describes how generations of conditioning shape the thinking of both men and women long after formal equality has been written into law – a mother who values a son’s education over a daughter’s, a mother-in-law who polices another woman’s choices, a husband who equates love with control. Such conditioning explains, in part, why so much gendered violence remains invisible to begin with: analysis of the NCRB’s own reporting categories shows that crimes such as acid attacks are frequently absorbed into the neutral, bureaucratic category of “grievous hurt,” with little parallel data kept on conviction or rehabilitation outcomes.[20] Alongside this older conditioning has grown a newer phenomenon: public conversation on gender that, while seeking to correct historic injustice, occasionally hardens into a narrative of mutual suspicion between men and women rather than mutual respect – visible in the very courtrooms where genuine cruelty and exaggerated vendetta now sit side by side, as the Supreme Court has itself observed.[21] Both distortions, old patriarchy and new polarisation, share a common root: each reduces a fellow citizen – son or daughter of Bharat Mata – to a category rather than a person. Article 51A(e) of the Constitution asks every citizen to renounce practices “derogatory to the dignity of women,”[22] but dignity cannot be legislated into hearts; it must be cultivated through education, example, and everyday ethical choice.
V. THE ETHICS DEFICIT: SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY BEYOND LEGISLATION
India has not lacked legislative response. The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, and the Mediation Act, 2023[23] together form a dense legal architecture. Yet law alone cannot compensate for a citizenry that misuses rights, ignores duties, or consumes sensational, unverified narratives on social media faster than verified fact. Misinformation about both genuine atrocities and false accusations spreads through the same channels, deepening mutual distrust rather than resolving it. Article 51A casts fundamental duties on every citizen – to value India’s composite culture, to develop scientific temper, and to strive towards excellence[24] – yet civic education rarely treats these duties with the seriousness given to fundamental rights. Social accountability is, in effect, the missing third leg beside legislative reform and judicial capacity: without it, every protective law risks being either underused by genuine victims who fear stigma, or overused by those seeking personal advantage, while courts absorb the resulting volume either way.
VI. THE NYAYA-SAMRASTA MODEL: AN INTEGRATED THREE-TIER SOLUTION
If judicial overload, misuse of law, patriarchal conditioning, and ethical erosion are interlocking problems, the solution must be equally integrated. We propose the Nyaya-Samrasta (“Justice-in-Harmony”) Model, a three-tier framework built deliberately upon institutions India already possesses, making it implementable rather than merely aspirational.
Tier One – Grassroots: “Nyaya Sakhi-Sakha” Pairs. NALSA’s Para-Legal Volunteer Scheme, operating since 2009, and the Department of Justice’s Nyaya Mitra Scheme, launched in 2017 to use National Judicial Data Grid data to identify litigants stranded in decade-old cases,[25] already place trained intermediaries between citizens and courts. We propose extending this proven model by stationing a paired woman-and-man paralegal-counsellor team – a “Nyaya Sakhi-Sakha” – in every Gram Panchayat and urban ward, trained jointly by District Legal Services Authorities and Mission Shakti functionaries.[26] Their mandate would be threefold: to counsel families in distress before any FIR is filed; to refer genuine cases of cruelty or violence immediately, without delay, to police and One-Stop Centres; and to document – never adjudicate – disputes rooted in ordinary matrimonial discord for voluntary pre-litigation mediation under the Mediation Act, 2023.[27] This single intervention addresses judicial overload at its source, before a dispute ever enters the court system.
Tier Two – District: Universalising the Family Welfare Committee. The Supreme Court’s Shivangi Bansal framework currently applies its cooling-off period and Family Welfare Committee screening only to Section 498A complaints.[28] We propose that Parliament and the State Legal Services Authorities extend this same architecture – retired judicial officers, social workers, and counsellors sitting on a time-bound, sixty-day committee – to all family-law and gender-related disputes voluntarily referred to it, with outcomes tracked transparently on a public, NJDG-linked dashboard. This converts a judicially carved exception into a generalised, accountable first filter for the entire family-justice system, benefiting genuine victims and innocent relatives alike.
Tier Three – National: A Gender Justice and Judicial Efficiency Council. At the apex, we propose a Council situated within the Department of Justice, performing four linked functions. First, deploying data-driven triage on National Judicial Data Grid records to automatically fast-track cases involving dowry death, offences against children, or acid attacks, while routing ambiguous matrimonial discord toward mediation – building on, not replacing, the e-Courts Mission Mode Project already underway.[29] Second, mandating a “Samvidhan Sanskar” curriculum module from Class 6 onward, teaching the Fundamental Duties under Article 51A alongside the lives of both women and men who shaped India’s freedom and social-reform movements, so that respect for the other gender is taught as shared constitutional culture rather than a contested debate. Third, a voluntary media-responsibility charter, developed with the Press Council of India and broadcast regulators, encouraging verified, non-sensational reporting on both gender violence and misuse alike, so that neither genuine survivors nor wrongly accused families are tried first in public opinion. Fourth, a calibrated accountability mechanism: courts already possess the power, under the Code of Civil Procedure, to impose costs for frivolous or vexatious litigation;[30] we propose this power be exercised consistently and transparently against proven false complaints, paired — deliberately and visibly – with fast-tracked compensation and protection for every genuine victim, so that deterrence against misuse never discourages a real survivor from coming forward.
This model also answers a question too often absent from legal scholarship: who bears the human cost of delay? Children caught in protracted matrimonial litigation often wait years for a settled custody arrangement, growing up amid recurring court dates rather than a resolved home – a silent casualty that no pendency chart directly records, but one that every family court in India quietly witnesses. A faster, fairer system is therefore not only a legal or economic reform; it is a child-welfare reform. It is also, unmistakably, a matter of national interest: pendency-driven costs to GDP weaken the very economic foundation of Viksit Bharat 2047,[31] while functioning, trusted courts are precisely the kind of “strong institutions” that the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 16 identifies as a precondition for peace and inclusive development.[32] An India that resolves its justice backlog and heals its gender discourse strengthens its claim to global leadership exactly as it seeks a larger voice on the world stage.
VII. CONCLUSION: RECLAIMING THE CONSTITUTION’S PROMISE TO BHARAT MATA’S CHILDREN
Bharat Mata does not ask her children to choose between her sons and her daughters, nor between mercy and accountability; she asks for both, given to every citizen equally and without delay. The crisis examined here – overloaded courts, misused provisions, internalized patriarchy, distorted narratives, and thinning social accountability – is, at its root, a single crisis of trust: between citizen and law, between man and woman, between rights claimed and duties honoured. The Nyaya-Samrasta Model offered in this article is not a final answer but a workable beginning — one that asks the State to reform its institutions, asks society to reform its mindset, and asks every citizen to reform their own conduct first. If pursued with sincerity, it can help deliver, at last, the justice that Bharat Mata’s Constitution promised to every one of her children seventy-five years ago.
Jai Hind! Bharat Mata Ki Jai!
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES / BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS
India Const. pmbl.
India Const. art. 51A.
India Const. art. 51A(e).
B. STATUTES & GOVERNMENT INSTRUMENTS
Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (No. 43 of 2005).
Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (No. 32 of 2012).
Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (No. 45 of 2023), §§ 85–86.
Mediation Act, 2023 (No. 32 of 2023).
Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, § 35A.
Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Ordinance, 2026.
Ministry of Women & Child Development, Mission Shakti: An Integrated Women Empowerment Programme (2021).
C. CASES
Shivangi Bansal v. Sahib Bansal, Crim. Appeal No. 2367 of 2023 (S.C., July 22, 2025).
Rajesh Chaddha v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2025 INSC 671.
Maram Nirmala v. State of Telangana (S.C., Nov. 28, 2025).
D. INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS
G.A. Res. 70/1, Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Sept. 25, 2015).
E. SECONDARY SOURCES — REPORTS, ARTICLES & WEBSITES
22 Judges per Million, 26 Lakh Cases Pending: India’s Judicial Gap Widens Despite Years of Reform, ThePrint (Mar. 22, 2026).
498A Is a “Cruel Misuse”: Supreme Court Judgement, LexSpeak Legal (May 13, 2025).
498A New Supreme Court Guidelines 2025, Lexspeak Legal (July 30, 2025).
498A Not a Free Pass: SC Quashes Dowry Case Against In-Law, ShoneeKapoor.com (Dec. 26, 2025).
Crimes Against Women in India: Trends, Challenges, and Policy Responses, SPRF (Oct. 13, 2025).
Information on Nyaya Mitra Scheme, National Portal of India (last visited June 29, 2026).
Judicial Pendency in India, Data for India (last visited June 29, 2026).
Law Commission of India, Report No. 120, Manpower Planning in Judiciary: A Blueprint (1987).
National Crime Records Bureau, Crime in India 2022, vol. I (2023).
National Family Health Survey-5, India Report (2019–21), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.
NCRB Report Out: Crimes Against Women Saw Minor Dip in 2024, Maximum Cases Were Cruelty by Husband, ThePrint (May 7, 2026).
Ordinance Lifts SC Strength to 38, Collegium Likely to Begin Deliberations, Supreme Court Observer (May 20, 2026).
Pendency of Court Cases in India, Wikipedia (last visited June 29, 2026).
President Promulgates Ordinance to Increase Supreme Court Judge Strength to 38, Bar & Bench (May 17, 2026).
Section 85 BNS vs Section 498A IPC: Supreme Court on Misuse, Dowry Harassment & the Need for Legal Reform, Legal Service India (June 2, 2026).
Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Ordinance, 2026 Notified, SCC Online Times (May 18, 2026).
Supreme Court Latest 498A Ruling Explained for Families, Barristery.in (2026).
Supreme Court Upholds Guidelines on Section 498A Misuse, IASPOINT (Sept. 18, 2025).
Understanding Vacancies in the Indian Judiciary, PRS Legislative Research (last visited June 29, 2026).
When ‘Marginal’ Means Massive: The Invisible Weight of Gendered Violence in NCRB Crime Statistics 2023, CJP (Oct. 29, 2025).
With Technology, NALSA Widens Reach of Free Legal Aid to Needy, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (2017).
[1]India Const. pmbl.
[2]Pendency of Court Cases in India, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendency_of_court_cases_in_India (last visited June 29, 2026) [hereinafter Pendency of Court Cases in India].
[3]Id. (citing NITI Aayog, Strategy for New India @75 184 (2018)).
[4]Rajesh Chaddha v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2025 INSC 671; 498A Is a “Cruel Misuse”: Supreme Court Judgment, LexSpeak Legal (May 13, 2025), https://lexspeak.in/2025/05/498a-is-a-cruel-misuse-supreme-court-judgement-13-5-2025/ .
[5]See Judicial Pendency in India, Data for India, https://www.dataforindia.com/pendency (last visited June 29, 2026) (collecting the Law Commission of India’s observation that denial of timely justice amounts to a denial of justice).
[6]Pendency of Court Cases in India, supra note 1; Judicial Pendency in India, Data for India, https://www.dataforindia.com/pendency (last visited June 29, 2026).
[7] President Promulgates Ordinance to Increase Supreme Court Judge Strength to 38, Bar & Bench (May 17, 2026), https://www.barandbench.com/news/law-policy/president-promulgates-ordinance-to-increase-supreme-court-judge-strength-to-38; Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Ordinance, 2026 Notified, SCC Online Times, https://www.scconline.com/blog/post/2026/05/17/supreme-court-number-of-judges-amendment-ordinance-2026-notified/ (last visited June 29, 2026).
[8]Ordinance Lifts SC Strength to 38, Collegium Likely to Begin Deliberations, Supreme Court Observer (May 20, 2026), https://www.scobserver.in/journal/ordinance-lifts-sc-strength-to-38-collegium-likely-to-begin-deliberations/.
[9]22 Judges per Million, 26 Lakh Cases Pending: India’s Judicial Gap Widens Despite Years of Reform, ThePrint (Mar. 22, 2026), https://theprint.in/judiciary/22-judges-per-million-26-lakh-cases-pending-indias-judicial-gap-widens-despite-years-of-reform/2885551/; Law Comm’n of India, Report No. 120, Manpower Planning in Judiciary: A Blueprint (1987).
[10]Understanding Vacancies in the Indian Judiciary, PRS Legislative Research, https://prsindia.org/theprsblog/understanding-vacancies-in-the-indian-judiciary (last visited June 29, 2026).
[11]Pendency of Court Cases in India, supra note 1.
[12]Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, No. 45 of 2023, §§ 85–86; see also Section 85 BNS vs. Section 498A IPC: Supreme Court on Misuse, Dowry Harassment & the Need for Legal Reform, Legal Service India (June 2, 2026), https://www.legalserviceindia.com/Legal-Articles/section-85-bns-vs-section-498a-ipc-supreme-court-on-misuse-dowry-harassment-the-need-for-legal-reform/.
[13]NCRB Report Out: Crimes Against Women Saw Minor Dip in 2024, Maximum Cases Were Cruelty by Husband, ThePrint (May 7, 2026), https://theprint.in/india/ncrb-report-out-crimes-against-women-saw-minor-dip-in-2024-maximum-cases-were-cruelty-by-husband/2924248/.
[14]Crimes Against Women in India: Trends, Challenges, and Policy Responses, SPRF (Oct. 13, 2025), https://sprf.in/crimes-against-women-in-india-trends-challenges-and-policy-responses/ (citing Nat’l Crime Recs. Bureau, Crime in India 2022, vol. I, ch. 3A, tbl. 3A.4).
[15]Id. (citing Nat’l Fam. Health Survey-5, India Report (2019–21)).
[16]Maram Nirmala v. State of Telangana (S.C. Nov. 28, 2025); see also 498A Not a Free Pass: SC Quashes Dowry Case Against In-Law, ShoneeKapoor.com (Dec. 26, 2025), https://www.shoneekapoor.com/legal-news/supreme-court-498a-dowry-misuse/.
[17]Shivangi Bansal v. Sahib Bansal, Crim. Appeal No. 2367 of 2023 (S.C. July 22, 2025); see also 498A New Supreme Court Guidelines 2025, LexSpeak Legal (July 30, 2025), https://lexspeak.in/2025/07/498a-new-supreme-court-guidelines-2025/.
[18]Supreme Court Latest 498A Ruling Explained for Families, Barristery.in (2026), https://www.barristery.in/2026/05/supreme-court-latest-498a-ruling.html.
[19]Supreme Court Upholds Guidelines on Section 498A Misuse, IASPOINT (Sept. 18, 2025), https://iaspoint.com/supreme-court-upholds-guidelines-on-section-498a-misuse/ (citing Nat’l Crime Recs. Bureau data).
[20]When “Marginal” Means Massive: The Invisible Weight of Gendered Violence in NCRB Crime Statistics 2023, Citizens for Justice & Peace (CJP) (Oct. 29, 2025), https://cjp.org.in/when-marginal-means-massive-the-invisible-weight-of-gendered-violence-in-ncrb-crime-statistics-2023/.
[21]Rajesh Chaddha v. State of Uttar Pradesh, supra note 3.
[22]INDIA CONST. art. 51A(e).
[23]Dowry Prohibition Act, No. 28 of 1961; Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, No. 43 of 2005; Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, No. 32 of 2012; Mediation Act, No. 32 of 2023.
[24]INDIA CONST. art. 51A.
[25]With Technology, NALSA Widens Reach of Free Legal Aid to Needy, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (2017), https://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/in-the-news/with-technology-nalsa-widens-reach-of-free-legal-aid-to-needy; Information on Nyaya Mitra Scheme, National Portal of India, https://www.india.gov.in/category/justice-law-grievances/subcategory/courts-tribunals/details/information-on-nyaya-mitra-scheme (last visited June 29, 2026).
[26]Ministry of Women & Child Development, Mission Shakti: An Integrated Women Empowerment Programme (2021).
[27]Mediation Act, No. 32 of 2023, § 5.
[28]Shivangi Bansal v. Sahib Bansal, supra note 17.
[29]e-Committee, Supreme Court of India, National Judicial Data Grid, https://njdg.ecourts.gov.in (last visited June 29, 2026).
[30]Code of Civil Procedure, No. 5 of 1908, § 35A.
[31]Pendency of Court Cases in India, supra note 1.
[32]G.A. Res. 70/1, Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ¶ 16 (Sept. 25, 2015).