Annual Gandhi Lecture - Justice S. Muralidhar - 75 Years of Incomplete Justice?: The Unrelenting Crises of the Indian Legal System

This lecture will analyze the aspects of the Indian legal system that have continued to resist change; the ones that have changed; the insurmountable barriers to justice; the challenges and the hope. The ‘aspects’ will include the critical components of the criminal justice system, the civil justice system, the ADR systems, the non-formal systems, the promise and challenge of the use of technology, the need to revisit our assumptions about legal education and focused legal scholarship, and generally which of these can be tackled and how.

About the Speaker

S. Muralidhar practised as a lawyer in the Supreme Court of India and the Delhi High Court for nearly two decades. He conducted several pro bono and PIL cases including the cases of convicts on death row on behalf of the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee. He was a part-time member of the Law Commission of India from December 2002 till May 2006. He was awarded a Ph D by the Delhi University for his work on legal aid in the criminal justice system in India.

Muralidhar was appointed Judge of High Court of Delhi in May 2006. He became the Chief Justice of the High Court of Orissa on 4th January 2021. After his retirement in August 2023, he was designated as Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court of India and has since returned to practice. Muralidhar is the author of 'Law, Poverty and Legal Aid: Access to Criminal Justice' (LexisNexis Butterworths, 2004). In August 2025 a book edited by him titled '[In]Complete Justice: The Supreme Court at 75', was launched.

About the Annual Gandhi Lecture

The Annual Gandhi Lecture has been presented by the South Asian Studies Council at Yale University since 1988 with the support of an endowment by Dr. Pravin N. Bhatt in the name of his parents, Nanabhai K. and Ajwaliben N. Bhatt.