90 per cent of lower judiciary is corrupt: Senior Advocate KK Manan

Published on: 08 Dec 2025 at 02:31 PM

Published by: Fact News

Fact News Service

Chandigarh, December 8: Allegations of widespread corruption within India’s judiciary have intensified as two senior legal figures publicly raised serious concerns about the integrity of both lower and higher courts.

KK Manan, former chairman of the Bar Council of Delhi, recently delivered a startling assessment of the state of judicial ethics. According to him, corruption in the lower judiciary is so pervasive that “90 per cent of judges” are compromised. He asserted that only a small minority remain honest, and even they struggle within a system where unethical practices have become entrenched. Manan claimed that lawyers practising in the courts are well aware of which judges can be influenced and which cannot, suggesting that corruption has become an open secret within legal circles.

Echoing concerns but going a step further, Ved Prakash Sharma, co-chairman of the Bar Council of India, questioned why public discussion is limited to the corruption of the lower judiciary. Speaking in a widely shared video statement, he asked pointedly: “If the lower judiciary is so deeply corrupt — what about the higher judiciary?” Sharma implied that corruption may not be restricted to the subordinate courts, and that failures in accountability at the top could encourage misconduct at every level.

Their remarks come amid public uproar following a high-profile scandal earlier this year involving revelations of large sums of alleged illicit cash linked to a senior judge. The incident rekindled long-standing anxieties about judicial probity and raised fresh demands for systemic reforms.

Even within the judicial establishment, concerns about the impact of misconduct have been acknowledged. Senior members of the judiciary have warned in recent months that public faith can be quickly eroded when allegations of corruption surface, and that the credibility of courts depends heavily on maintaining the highest ethical standards.

Experts note that India’s judicial system has long suffered from structural weaknesses — massive backlogs, understaffed courts, opaque appointment procedures, and limited mechanisms to discipline errant judges. Critics argue that these built-in flaws create fertile ground for corruption to grow unchecked.

Legal reform advocates say the comments made by Manan and Sharma, though controversial, underline the urgency of addressing these systemic faults. They argue that isolated investigations into individual scandals are not enough; what is needed is a transparent and independent oversight framework that applies uniformly from the trial courts to the higher judiciary.

Others caution that sweeping allegations risk undermining public confidence if not backed by concrete evidence. They point out that courts have, in the past, taken action against individuals making broad, unsubstantiated accusations against the judiciary.

Still, the debate triggered by Manan and Sharma shows no signs of abating. With pressure mounting from both the legal community and civil society, calls for judicial accountability, structural reforms, and greater transparency continue to grow — and demand answers from the very institution tasked with upholding justice