Sharp Fall in Citation of Supreme Court Judgments by Foreign Courts After 2014, Study Finds

Source:-https://thewire.in

Mumbai: Over the past decade, and particularly since 2014, there has been a steady decline in the international credibility and standing of the Supreme Court of India, a new study on foreign court citations of Indian judgments has found.

In elaborate research carried out by studying the judgments of 43 countries and identifying the frequency and pattern of citations of the Supreme Court of India’s judgments, lawyer and independent legal researcher Mitali Gupta has concluded that there has been a clear fall in the number of times international judges cite Indian judgments in their own rulings.

Gupta has taken two periods – the first, 2009-2014, when the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was in power for its second term, and 2014 to the present, when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has been in power – to study trends of how Indian judgments have been referred to and cited by courts in various countries.

The political regimes serve as indicative markers of judicial time because the Central government is a major litigant and cases revolving around policy matters tend to produce judgments other countries’ courts typically take note of because the questions of law which come up often have a relevance beyond national boundaries.

Given the similarity in legal systems, it is mostly South Asian and African countries that refer to Indian judgments and among them are specifically those countries that follow the common law system, Gupta notes. The study, her report states, was carried out with the primary objective of ascertaining if the international stature and credibility of the Supreme Court of India has changed in the past decade.