The dominant accounts of the Indian Supreme Court’s capacity for social transformation place considerable emphasis on the exceptional public trust and confidence in the Indian judiciary. Using National Election Studies post election survey data collected following the 1996 and 2009 Parliamentary elections, this is the first study to evaluate and assess the nature and extent of trust in Indian courts using public opinion data. We find that Indians have remarkably high levels of trust and confidence in the Indian judiciary across socio-demographic factors and consistently across the two time periods examined in this study. Secondly, we find that standard explanations based on caste and religious identity do not find purchase when explaining trust in the judiciary. Nor does class status. Finally, we find that trust in elected institutions is positively associated with trust in the judiciary providing preliminary support for the institutional legitimacy or a diffuse support hypothesis. We conclude that the Indian judiciary enjoys significant public trust and confidence, that provides the institutional legitimacy for an innovative and radical approach to constitutional adjudication.

The Indian Supreme Court sits in panels and can have up to 31 judges. This chapter explores how the Indian Supreme Court developed its current structure and the impact of this structure on its functioning. It argues that the Supreme Court’s structure has a range of inter-related effects that includes increasing access to the Court, producing a “polyvocal” jurisprudence that destabilizes stare decisis, spurring experimentation among judges, fostering a “Chief Justice dominant” Court, and reducing the perceived partisanship of judges. Mapping the structure of the Court, as well as the Court’s relationship with the rest of the judiciary, helps us appreciate how judges ultimately interpret the law and the Constitution not in isolation, but within a larger judicial architecture.