Justice delayed, justice denied: Saudagar case highlights judicial failures in India
It made poignant reading about a late Railway ticket examiner (TTE), V M Saudagar, who was recently exonerated by the Supreme Court of India of a Rs.50 bribery charge after a 37-year-long legal battle, much after his death. The court ruled there was no conclusive evidence against him and ordered all consequential benefits, including pension, to be released to his legal heirs.
The case dates back to May 1988, Saudagar, a TTE, was accused of accepting a Rs.50 bribe for berth allotment during a vigilance check. Following a departmental inquiry, he was dismissed in 1996. Saudagar challenged his dismissal in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), which set aside the dismissal in 2002, and directed the Indian Railways to reinstate Saudagar, holding that the evidence did not justify his dismissal. But instead of complying, the government challenged the CAT order in the Bombay High Court, which stayed the tribunal’s ruling.
Saudagar died while the case was pending, and in 2017, the High Court reversed the CAT’s decision and upheld his dismissal.
His family took the case to the Supreme Court in 2019. In October 2025, the Supreme Court overturned the High Court’s decision and cleared Saudagar of all charges. After 37 years, the Supreme Court restored his honour and directed that all consequential monetary benefits, including pension, be released to his legal heirs, ending a long legal battle for his family. Upon reviewing the decades-old case, the Supreme Court bench found the charges against Saudagar to be baseless. The judges observed that the inquiry officer’s findings were perverse and based on misleading material.
The court said: “All the charges are not proved against the appellant. The Central Administrative Tribunal, based on material on record, had rightly interfered with the penalty of dismissal from service.”
The SC Bench further added that the High Court had failed to recognize that when an inquiry officer’s conclusions are unsupported by evidence, the CAT has every right to set aside the penalty.
It took an inordinate delay of 37 Years, for the man’s Honour and his family, a painstaking battle, to settle a petty dispute of just Rupees fifty. Many disturbing questions arise about India’s justice system, government departments indulging in reckless litigation and wasting public money, the role of vigilance departments, and most importantly, why India does not have the ‘Right of Justice’ explicitly enshrined as a Fundamental Right?
It is in Anita Khushwa v. Pushpa Sadan, 2016, that the SC interpreted that access to justice is a fundamental right under Articles 21 and 14, and it identified 4 key components for access to justice:
- Effective adjudicatory mechanisms.
- Reasonable accessibility in terms of distance.
- Speedy adjudication.
- Affordable access to the judicial process.
What are the Provisions related to the Right to Access to Justice?
Constitutional Provisions:
- Article 14 (Right to Equality): Article 14 guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the laws. The SC has interpreted this to include the right to access justice, ensuring that all individuals have an equal opportunity to seek legal redress without discrimination.
- Article 21 (Right to Life and Personal Liberty): Article 21 ensures that individuals can seek judicial remedies for grievances, thus protecting their personal liberty and rights.
Did Mr. Saudagar get justice from the “effective adjudicatory mechanisms referred to in the above judgment? It can be boldly asserted in the negative. The reasons are not too far to seek. All government departments, whether Central or State, have their own in-house vigilance set up, which are lacking in expertise in handling trap cases, and legal requirements and safeguards to be observed while booking cases. Internal politics, rivalries, extraneous considerations like religion, caste, and plain jealousy come into play while registering cases. Nobody has any accountability whatsoever, at any level.
There is another formality of obtaining clearance from the Central Vigilance Commission, before initiating proceedings, in case the officers belong to All India Services/ Central Services. Officials in this organization are drawn on deputation from either the All India Services/ Central Services to function as Inquiry officers. Again, legal expertise is lacking, and their final reports suffer from innumerable infirmities, giving scope for protracted litigation before different forums.
The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) is the first forum to provide access to justice. The CAT has been reasonably fair to litigants, but the presence of an Administrative Member, normally a retired bureaucrat, makes it a sore ego issue for serving bureaucrats. Therefore, CAT decisions are routinely challenged before High Courts, as it is the taxpayer’s money that is being squandered, and there is none to question why?
At the High Court level, there is a routine acceptance of most government appeals, and an unhealthy trend of overturning CAT decisions, which also appears to be standard practice. The CAT is the last fact-finding body, and normally, it is held that approaching the High Court/ Supreme Court has to be on a point of law. But this dictum is hardly honoured by government departments, and appeals are dumped in High Courts on a daily basis.
After the High Court disposes of the matter, either party rushes to the Supreme Court, where there is a huge traffic block, unlikely to be resolved in a person’s lifetime. CAT’s orders are reversed by the High Court, and in turn, the High Court’s order is reversed by the Supreme Court. Litigation in India has become a see-saw game and is ridiculously expensive.
This writer is of the view that despite 37 years of ordeal, the Supreme Court never ordered damages, litigation fees, or compensation of any kind by the Railways for chasing a frivolous litigation for nearly four decades.
India has one of the largest numbers of pending court cases in the world. In September 2025, the total number of pending cases of all types and at all levels rose above 53 million, including over 180,000 court cases pending for more than 30 years in district and high courts. 47 million out of 53 million cases (i.e., more than 85% of cases) are pending in district courts alone. The government itself is the biggest litigant, having 50% of the pending cases being sponsored by the state. It is a very sorry state of affairs.
Accomplished trial attorney, arbitrator, and mediator, Kilroy J. Oldster, in his book Dead Toad Scrolls, says, “Courtrooms are battlegrounds where society’s bullies and the oppressed clash, where the victims of abusers seek recompense, and where parties cheated by scalawags seek retribution. Because of the high stakes involved, the parties are not always honest, and justice depends upon an array of factors, including the prevailing case precedent, the skills of the legal advocates, and the merits of each party’s claims and counterclaims.”
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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