Institutional Autonomy And Democratic Accountability In India (2025): A Structural Analysis Of Executive, Legislative And Judicial Conduct
- IJLLR Journal
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Akash Kumar, Jamia Hamdard
Introduction
This paper examines institutional autonomy and democratic accountability in India in 2025 through a structural analysis of executive, legislative, and judicial conduct. The inquiry does not proceed on the assumption of institutional breakdown; rather, it considers whether the constitutional equilibrium designed to distribute power has operated with its intended steadiness. Legislative processes continued, statutes were enacted, judgments delivered, and elections conducted. Yet alongside this visible continuity, patterns emerged — executive authority expanding in scope, deliberative spaces narrowing in tempo, and judicial intervention exhibiting calibrated restraint in matters of structural consequence.
Scholarship on Indian constitutionalism has long engaged with separation of powers, judicial review, and the tension between governance efficiency and constitutional limitation. More recent comparative discourse has examined democratic backsliding and institutional centralisation. These analyses, however, frequently assess institutions in isolation. This study instead approaches them relationally, examining how their interaction shapes the operative distribution of power. The question, therefore, is not whether constitutional forms endure — they do — but whether their internal balance continues to animate the full promise of democratic accountability.
When the Legislature Failed: Parliament and Democratic Responsibility
On 22 April 2025, violence disrupted the relative calm of Baisaran Valley near Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir. A meadow known for tourism became the site of targeted civilian killing: twenty-six tourists, predominantly Hindus, lost their lives, and more than twenty others sustained injuries. The attackers were reported to have links with the Pakistan-backed Resistance Front (TRF). Among the most significant civilian-directed assaults in the region since 2008, the incident drew immediate attention to questions of intelligence coordination, territorial security management, and the adequacy of preventive safeguards. Beyond the immediate tragedy, it prompted examination of institutional response mechanisms and the capacity of parliamentary oversight to engage meaningfully with matters of national security accountability.
