CJI Surya Kant proposes ‘Nyaya Setu’ for seamless implementation of verdicts in BRICS+ countries
The Chief Justice of India proposed the concept of "Nyaya Setu" (bridge of justice) at a BRICS Plus legal forum plenary session on strengthening the rule of law and legal capacity for economic resilience in a multipolar world.
Two concrete institutional proposals were floated: a BRICS+ Judicial Fellowship, under which career judges from member countries would briefly sit in one another's courts to gain comparative legal exposure, and a shared jurisprudence repository enabling courts across member states to access and draw on each other's judgments.
The proposal frames judicial cooperation and institutional trust-building among diverse legal systems as a foundation for economic cooperation among BRICS Plus economies, alongside a companion concept termed "Nyaya-nomics."
The initiative remains at the proposal stage, floated for consideration by the BRICS Plus legal forum rather than as an adopted binding mechanism.
Judicial Diplomacy and Comparative Law Cooperation
Judicial diplomacy refers to engagement between judiciaries of different countries — through judicial exchanges, comparative jurisprudence sharing, and cross-court dialogue — to build institutional trust and harmonise legal reasoning on shared challenges, distinct from formal treaty-based legal cooperation between executives. Comparative law is the study and application of legal principles from other jurisdictions to inform domestic adjudication, especially useful where domestic law is silent or evolving (e.g., emerging areas like AI regulation, cross-border commercial disputes, or climate litigation).
Key Details
- Unlike executive-level diplomacy, judicial diplomacy is conducted by courts and judges, typically through forums, exchanges, and fellowships rather than binding agreements.
- The BRICS Plus grouping (BRICS expanded since 2024 to include additional members) spans multiple legal traditions — common law, civil law, and mixed/hybrid systems — making comparative reasoning especially relevant.
- India's Supreme Court and higher judiciary have periodically engaged in such comparative exchanges through bilateral judicial dialogues and multilateral forums.
The proposed BRICS+ Judicial Fellowship and shared jurisprudence repository are concrete instruments of judicial diplomacy — enabling judges and courts across a bloc with diverse legal traditions to learn from and reference each other's reasoning without requiring formal treaty ratification.
Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments: Section 44A, CPC
Cross-border enforcement of civil judgments in India is governed by Section 44A of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, which allows a decree from a superior court of a "reciprocating territory" (a country notified by the Government of India in the Official Gazette) to be executed in India as if it were a decree of an Indian district court — without the need for a fresh civil suit. For non-reciprocating territories, the judgment-holder must file a fresh civil suit on the foreign judgment in an Indian court.
Key Details
- Notified reciprocating territories currently include the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Aden, and the United Arab Emirates (notified 2020), among others.
- Execution under Section 44A must generally be initiated within three years of the foreign judgment/decree.
- This is distinct from Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs), which govern cooperation in criminal investigations (evidence-sharing, extradition-adjacent assistance) rather than civil decree enforcement.
"Seamless implementation of verdicts" across BRICS+ countries — the stated goal behind Nyaya Setu — squarely engages this static framework: for judgments to move easily between jurisdictions, countries typically need reciprocal notification (as under India's Section 44A model) or equivalent mutual-recognition mechanisms, which such a bloc-wide judicial cooperation initiative would need to build toward.
Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) vs. Judgment Enforcement
MLATs are formal bilateral or multilateral treaties enabling states to request and provide assistance in criminal matters — evidence gathering, witness testimony, and related judicial cooperation — and are distinct from the private international law framework (like Section 44A CPC) that governs recognition and enforcement of civil judgments between states.
Key Details
- India has MLATs with numerous countries for criminal justice cooperation, negotiated and administered primarily through the Ministry of Home Affairs/Ministry of External Affairs.
- Civil judgment enforcement, by contrast, functions through private international law principles — either treaty-based reciprocity (Section 44A model) or case-by-case suits on foreign judgments.
- A judicial fellowship and jurisprudence-sharing repository, as proposed under Nyaya Setu, would operate independently of both these formal treaty mechanisms — as a softer, capacity-building form of cooperation.
Understanding this distinction clarifies that "Nyaya Setu," as proposed, is not itself an MLAT or an enforcement treaty — it is a capacity-building and knowledge-sharing initiative that could, over time, lay groundwork for more formal reciprocal-enforcement arrangements among BRICS+ members.
- The proposal was introduced at a BRICS Plus legal forum's inaugural plenary themed "Rule of Law in a Multipolar World: Building Legal Capacity for Economic Resilience."
- Two specific mechanisms proposed: (1) BRICS+ Judicial Fellowship for career judges; (2) a shared jurisprudence repository across member courts.
- Section 44A, CPC (1908) — India's statutory basis for enforcing foreign decrees from notified "reciprocating territories" without a fresh suit; execution must begin within 3 years.
- Reciprocating territories notified under Section 44A include the UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, New Zealand, UAE (2020), among others.
- BRICS Plus is the expanded BRICS grouping (original members plus additional countries admitted from 2024 onward), spanning multiple distinct legal traditions.