There are moments when a single statistic punctures decades of comfortable rhetoric. Tamil Nadu’s judiciary has produced one such moment. According to data placed before Parliament by the Union Law Ministry, 97.65 per cent of judges in Tamil Nadu’s district and subordinate judiciary, 1,205 out of 1,234, belong to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. In a country where social justice is routinely caricatured as populism and reservation dismissed as an assault on merit, this number is not merely striking, it is unsettling to the prevailing orthodoxy.
Unsettling, because it exposes the fragility of the argument that representation and excellence are mutually exclusive. Unsettling, because it reveals that what much of India still debates as theory, Tamil Nadu has long practised as governance.
A judiciary that mirrors society
The composition of the district and subordinate judiciary in Tamil Nadu is instructive: 20.66 per cent SCs, 1.21 per cent STs and 75.76 per cent OBCs. No other State comes close in OBC representation, even though OBCs constitute the largest segment of India’s population. Further, the contrast in data is regional and stark: while northern States remain mired in exclusionary practices, southern States, led by Tamil Nadu, have steadily advanced towards genuine social inclusion through sustained political will and institutional reform.
The outcome, therefore, cannot be dismissed as an artefact of rule-bound selection. It is the product of a deeper social reform, one shaped over decades through access to education, public employment and a relentless challenge to caste discriminations. When equality is built at the root, it need not be imposed at the branch. This is Tamil Nadu’s peculiarity and its strength.
The long shadow of exclusion
Contrast this with the history of the higher judiciary. As George H. Gadbois Jr. documents in Judges of the Supreme Court of India (1950– 1989), it took three decades after the Supreme Court’s establishment for the first SC judge, Justice A. Varadarajan, to be appointed in 1980. Another eight years passed before the first OBC judge, Justice S. Rathnavel Pandian, reached the Court. Both came from Tamil Nadu.
The delay was not incidental; it was systemic. Between 1950 and 1989, Brahmins constituted over 42.9 per cent of Supreme Court judges, despite forming barely 3 to 5 per cent of the population. Other Forward Castes constituted
over 49.4 per cent of representation, though accounting for only 29.7 per cent of the population. OBCs, who make up over a quarter of India’s population, accounted for just over 5 per cent. Scheduled Tribes had no representation at all. These figures were not the result of a neutral process. They reflected a judiciary shaped by inherited privilege, informal networks and a narrow conception of “merit”.
Justice Varadarajan himself acknowledged this reality with disarming candour at the Periyar Centenary Year celebration in Chennai on 17 September 1978: “Had Periyar not been there for us, I wish to say that it is doubtful whether the community to which I belong would have found a place in this High Court.” Justice S. Mohan, who would later also ascend to the Supreme Court, concurred. Their ascent was not charity; it was the delayed correction of historical exclusion.
Justice A.Varadharajan. Justice Mohan. Justice Ratnavel Pandian.
Merit, tested and found wanting
The most persistent objection to representation in higher judiciary is that it dilutes quality of merit. Tamil Nadu offers a living rebuttal. Judges from diverse social backgrounds – first-generation lawyers, children of agricultural labourers, government clerks, teachers, small traders – have performed with distinction, indistinguishable in competence from peers drawn from elite, caste-endowed lineages. If anything, diversity has enriched adjudication, introducing plural social experience into the interpretation of law
Merit did not disappear in Tamil Nadu. It ceased to be monopolised.
This reality is further borne out by recent appointments to the Madras High Court. During the tenures of Chief Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Sanjiv Khanna, 15 out of 17 judges appointed to the court came from BC, OBC, MBC, SC or ST communities. The sky did not fall. The court did not falter. What changed was merely who was allowed to sit on the Bench.
The broken ladder
Yet the story acquires a troubling turn as one moves upward. The social inclusiveness evident in the lower judiciary collapses at the level of High Courts and the Supreme Court. Representation thins, opacity thickens, and the collegium, operating without published criteria or accountability, reproduces and recognises familiar hierarchies. Entire communities remain unrepresented despite the presence of capable advocates with decades of practice. Meanwhile, factions within dominant groups appropriate what little space exists, crowding out the backward and most backward classes.
The recent proposal of the Supreme Court collegium to appoint five retired judges of the Allahabad High Court as ad hoc judges under Article 224A illustrates the problem. Three of the proposed judges are Muslims, two are women, and all five are from the service. While diversity in any form is welcome, the method raises serious concerns. Instead of appointing fresh candidates from the
subordinate judiciary, where social representation is demonstrably broader, the collegium has chosen an unprecedented route of recycling retired judges through transitory procedure. This circumvents the opportunity to deepen representation at the High Court level and reinforces the perception that the collegium prefers expediency over reform.
Federal lessons, national reluctance
The divergence between Tamil Nadu and the rest of India points to an uncomfortable federal truth. The lower judiciary reflects the social justice ethos of the States; the higher judiciary reflects the politics of the Union. Where States have invested in redistribution of opportunity, courts mirror society. Where the Union remains ambivalent or hostile to social representation, higher courts remain enclaves.
Tamil Nadu’s experience demonstrates that proportional representation is not an aberration but the fulfilment of a constitutional promise. Articles 14, 15 and 16 do not envision a republic governed by inherited elites; they mandate substantive equality. Social representation is therefore not a concession to identity politics; it is the architecture of democratic legitimacy, especially in a society where numerical majorities are systematically reduced to oppressed classes through entrenched Sanatanic hierarchies and discrimination.
The case for reform
The Constitution does not envisage courts as cloistered guilds. It envisages them as public institutions deriving legitimacy from the people in whose name justice is administered. The real question, therefore, is no longer whether social justice works. The evidence is before us. The question is whether India’s higher judiciary is willing to relinquish the comfort of inherited privilege and embrace the discipline of constitutional equality. This includes not only backward and scheduled communities, but also minorities and women, groups whose perspectives are essential to a plural constitutional order. Transparency in appointments, published criteria, and a conscious commitment to social diversity are no longer optional; they are imperative.
A Model, Not an Exception
Tamil Nadu is often described as an exception. That is a misreading. It is a model.
The question the data poses to the rest of India is simple and unavoidable: if one State can build an inclusive judiciary without compromising competence, why does the republic at large remain wedded to a “judicial oligarchy?” The answer lies not in the absence of merit, but in the persistence of syndicate.
History shows that when syndicates are broken, institutions do not weaken. They become fairer, stronger and more just. Tamil Nadu has shown the way. The Constitution asks the rest of India to follow.
