Judiciary cannot win public trust by avoiding scrutiny, says CJI Surya Kant
CJI Surya Kant said courts earn public confidence not by being shielded from scrutiny but by remaining open to examination and criticism.
Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has said the judiciary cannot secure public confidence by placing itself beyond scrutiny, arguing that institutions stay credible not through protection from criticism but by repeatedly withstanding it.
He was delivering the 6th Ram Jethmalani Memorial Lecture on the theme "Justice seen to be done: Transparency and public trust as pillars of the legal system" on Monday, September 14, 2026.
The Chief Justice drew on the Supreme Court's recent suo motu proceedings over a Class 8 NCERT textbook chapter that carried references to judicial corruption. He described the matter as an occasion to weigh the relationship between legitimate criticism and public confidence in the institution.
The court had initially directed that the textbook be withdrawn, calling the depiction of the judiciary reckless, irresponsible, motivated and contemptuous, and warning that it could bias impressionable young minds. The Bench, headed by the CJI, had said heads must roll. The proceedings were later closed after the chapter was replaced with an updated curriculum, and harsher earlier findings against individual academicians were recalled.
Quoting from the court's own order, the Chief Justice said the judiciary as an institution is not and cannot be averse to criticism, and that fair, informed and constructive critique of judicial functioning is a legitimate and necessary feature of a vibrant constitutional democracy, contributing to institutional accountability and self-correction.
A court, he said, cannot seek the confidence of the public by placing itself beyond scrutiny; it must remain willing to be examined, questioned and, where necessary, criticised.
On the principle that justice must be seen to be done, the Chief Justice said a judicial decision must not only be right but must appear right, particularly to those who have to live with it. The judiciary, he added, need not work for public approval, but its actions must earn public trust.
He said a court does not earn trust by being liked or by delivering the outcomes people wanted. It earns trust when those who lost, and who wanted a different result, still walk away believing the process that decided against them was fair — a harder thing to earn than approval, and far more valuable.
Transparency for a court, the Chief Justice said, is not merely a matter of open doors and public hearings. It means the reasoning behind a decision, and not just its result, can be examined by anyone who cares to look, including those the decision goes against. A court that announces verdicts but keeps its reasoning to itself has not really been transparent, he said.
Describing public trust as the only coin the judiciary has ever truly held, he said it cannot be earned once and relied on forever. It must be renewed continuously and is shaped more by the accumulated, ordinary experience people have of the system, case after case, than by any single moment or judgment. The work of earning it, he said, is never really finished.