The Government’s end of year economic review announced that we have overtaken Japan to become the world’s fourth largest economy. The review noted that India’s gross domestic product has already reached about $4.18 trillion (€3.55 trillion), and is projected to reach $7.3 trillion by 2030.
As our aspirations to play a leading role in the global economy increases, it is important for us to pay greater attention towards legal and judicial capacity building as a central facet of India’s economic governance.
While 1991 ushered in the opening up of India’s economy with an expanding role of the private sector, the last two decades have dramatically transformed India’s corporate and commercial sector with significant impetus on laws relating to economic governance.
The pre-1991 economic model was based upon courts handling mostly civil, criminal, land, and family-related legal disputes and not complex commercial transactions. However, the 1991 economic reforms led to a rise in FDI, infrastructure projects, private capital, corporate restructuring, banking and financial sector issues, and more recently, the evolution of a digital economy.
Judicial capacity building
While we know that 4.78 crore cases are pending across all levels of the judiciary, government entities are involved in nearly 50 per cent of all litigation, a significant part of which is relating to tax, regulatory, infrastructure, and contract-related matters.
Undoubtedly, within this broader data set, it needs to be noted that civil/commercial cases are significant. The corporate and commercial uncertainty is further exacerbated by the fact that among these cases, more than one crore are civil cases of which more than 57 per cent are pending for over a year.
The institutional expectations have also arisen significantly because of which commercial cases have grown exponentially — for example, IBC-related litigation has consistently increased over the years, and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) alone has over 14,961 cases pending as of March 31, 2025. The unfortunate reality is the judiciary is still structurally designed through the framework of a 20th century dispute resolution model while trying to also deal with 21st century commercial realities.
The World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 indicators demonstrated that with high-level policy interventions, India could significantly improve its overall rankings (rank 63 in ease of doing business, an impressive jump from 142 in 2014).
However, the issue of legal and judicial capacity building remains a major challenge as India is still ranked a poor 163rd on enforcing contracts. It is not a good situation for the economic future of India if it takes nearly 1,500 days on average for a company to resolve a standard commercial dispute in a court of first instance. The World Bank’s methodology is centred on time, cost, and the quality of judicial process.
Training the judges
The five most important and influential areas of judicial adjudication where judges need to be intellectually engaged, their training pedagogically structured with long-term capacity building and education are:
Corporate governance and company law: There is a need for training modules developed which focus on understanding board structures, fiduciary duties, related-party transactions, shareholder agreements, acquisition agreements besides new and emerging areas such as ESG, shareholder activism, and digital corporate governance. We need to build capacity within the State and National Judicial Academies through the involvement of academics, law firm partners, and industry regulators.
Commercial contracts and complex transactions: Today’s judges need to have an understanding of infrastructure contracts, PPP models, M&A structures, project finance, and construction contracts. They are called upon to adjudicate disputes arising out of such matters. The existing knowledge based on understanding contract risk allocation, indemnities, warranties, and financial covenants needs to be substantially augmented to deal with domestic, international, and cross-border disputes that may get adjudicated in Indian courts. The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is a good example where it trains judges jointly with financial regulators on commercial and corporate structures.
Financial, banking, insurance and insolvency law: Our judges need to develop understanding of new insolvency frameworks, restructuring principles, and even valuation methodologies. Training and capacity building for law and economic analysis is absolutely essential for our judges. For example, US Bankruptcy Courts conduct specialised annual judicial education programmes sponsored by the Federal Judicial Centre.
Competition law and market economics: While the establishment of the Competition Commission of India has created new levels of expertise in these matters, the core judicial function requires basic knowledge and understanding of market definition, dominance assessment, and economic tools. For example, EU judges receive training by the European Judicial Training Network in industrial economics and market analysis.
Technology, digital economy, and data governance: The speed with which issues relating to technology and AI are beginning to dominate the legal sector requires a better level of preparedness on the part of the judges. Understanding IT contracts, IP agreements, fintech, crypto-assets, and appreciation of the interdisciplinary aspects of cyber security and AI governance has become essential. Courts in Singapore and Estonia have developed structured training on algorithmic accountability and AI-in-contract law.
Chief Justice Surya Kant has already announced that addressing pendency will be one of his institutional priorities. This objective can be met by a reimagination of the way Indian courts have dealt with corporate, commercial, and economic matters.
The writer is the Founding Vice Chancellor of O.P. Jindal Global University
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Published on January 9, 2026
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