Supreme Court Hosts BRICS Chief Justices' Forum in New Delhi

🗞️ Why in News The Supreme Court of India is hosting the BRICS Chief Justices’ Forum in New Delhi from 4 to 6 September 2026, inaugurated by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant. The Forum precedes the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September 2026, held during India’s rotating chairship of the grouping in 2026.

What the Forum Is, and Why India Is Hosting It

The Forum is a working meeting of Chief Justices, Presidents of Supreme Courts and senior judicial leaders of BRICS Member States and BRICS Partner Countries. It is not a treaty body; it is a standing platform for judicial dialogue among BRICS jurisdictions, convened by whichever country holds the BRICS chair for the year.

Justice Surya Kant has been the 53rd CJI since November 2025, succeeding CJI Bhushan Ramakrishna Gavai. His tenure runs until February 2027. India is chairing BRICS for the fourth time, after 2012, 2016 and 2021, and for the first time since the grouping’s expansion.

Who Was in the Room

The Forum brings together judicial delegations from BRICS Member States and BRICS Partner Countries. As reported by the Supreme Court and covered by Indian legal news outlets, the CJI held bilateral meetings on the opening day with heads of delegation from Russia, China, Egypt, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Belarus, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Iran and Uzbekistan.

The composition matters because BRICS is no longer only the five founders. The grouping has been larger since 2024. On invitations issued at the Johannesburg summit in August 2023, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates joined with effect from 1 January 2024. Saudi Arabia was also invited but has not confirmed membership. Indonesia joined in early 2025. In parallel, a BRICS Partner Country category was established, with Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan among those participating in that role at recent BRICS meetings.

The distinction that earns marks. A Member State signs onto the full institutional architecture of BRICS. A Partner Country engages in the working tracks and summits but does not carry Member-State status. In prose, aspirants routinely fuse the two and treat every attending country as a member. The precise term the Forum’s own release uses is “Member States and Partner Countries”.

What They Discussed

The Forum’s working agenda covered several judicial-cooperation themes, all of which map onto standard GS2 territory:

• Cross-border commercial dispute resolution, including a proposal by CJI Surya Kant for a common BRICS platform for arbitration and mediation.
• Technology in the courts, including artificial intelligence for case management and language translation.
• Institutional cooperation among commercial courts and mediation centres of BRICS jurisdictions.
• Judicial dialogue on contemporary questions in justice delivery and sustainable development.

India’s institutional pitch is not abstract. The country brings to the table the e-Courts Mission Mode Project (Phase III), approved by the Union Cabinet in September 2023 for the period 2023 to 2027, National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) dashboards, Nyaya Bandhu pro bono legal-aid app, and Supreme Court experiments in speech-to-text hearings and AI translation of judgments into scheduled languages.

Where This Sits in India’s BRICS Year

Judicial diplomacy is a track that runs alongside the ministerial and leaders’ tracks. In a chair-year, the host country typically convenes meetings of Foreign Ministers, National Security Advisors, Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, and sectoral working groups. The Chief Justices’ Forum is the judicial line of that same architecture. Its main function is not to produce binding law; it is to build institutional confidence among judiciaries whose commercial parties increasingly trade, invest and litigate across each other’s borders.

The theme of India’s 2026 chairship is “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, with declared priorities on people-to-people exchanges, youth engagement, education, cultural cooperation, sustainability and inclusive growth. The judicial forum’s arbitration-and-mediation focus fits directly under “cooperation” and, in the Indian pitch, under the resilience of the international commercial order.

UPSC Relevance

GS Paper 2. Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests; important international institutions, agencies and fora, their structure, mandate. Also structure, organisation and functioning of the Judiciary.

The Mains framing. The useful frame is not “India hosted a legal meeting”. It is that BRICS is testing a judicial-cooperation track for a plurilateral commercial order that does not run through the Bretton Woods or the London-New York arbitral seats, and that India, as the largest common-law jurisdiction in the grouping, has an obvious institutional interest in shaping that track.

A Mains question worth preparing. “The BRICS Chief Justices’ Forum reflects a wider push to build BRICS-specific commercial and judicial infrastructure. Examine India’s stake in this track. (250 words)”

Prelims focus. Composition of BRICS after the 2024 expansion; the Member State versus Partner Country distinction; India’s earlier BRICS chair-years; CJI Surya Kant as the 53rd Chief Justice; venue and dates of the 18th Summit.

📌 Facts Corner — Knowledgepedia

Prelims, statement-ready facts:

• The BRICS Chief Justices’ Forum was held in New Delhi from 4 to 6 September 2026, hosted by the Supreme Court of India.
• CJI Surya Kant, the 53rd Chief Justice of India, inaugurated the Forum.
• Justice Surya Kant has been the CJI since November 2025, succeeding CJI Bhushan Ramakrishna Gavai.
• India assumed the BRICS chairship on 1 January 2026 under the theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”.
• The 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit is scheduled to be held in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September 2026.
• BRICS Member States after the 2024 expansion are Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
• Indonesia became a BRICS Member State in early 2025.
• Saudi Arabia was invited to join at the 2023 Johannesburg summit, with effect from 2024, but has not confirmed member status; its position is described as pending in official BRICS documents.
• A BRICS Partner Country category was established, with Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan among those participating.
• The 17th BRICS Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in July 2025.
• India is chairing BRICS for the fourth time, after 2012, 2016 and 2021.
• CJI Surya Kant proposed a common BRICS platform for arbitration and mediation.
• India’s institutional offering includes e-Courts Phase III, the National Judicial Data Grid and the Nyaya Bandhu pro bono legal aid app.

Prelims, the traps:

• Member State and Partner Country are distinct BRICS categories; a Partner Country is not a member.
• The BRICS Chief Justices’ Forum is not a treaty body; it produces no binding law.
• India’s four BRICS chair-years are 2012, 2016, 2021 and 2026, not any other set.
• Surya Kant is the 53rd Chief Justice, not the 52nd; Bhushan Ramakrishna Gavai was the 52nd.

Mains, arguments and keywords:

• Frame: judicial diplomacy is a Track-adjacent tool of Indian foreign policy, complementing the leaders’ and ministers’ tracks.
• Keywords: plurilateral commercial order, arbitration and mediation, judicial cooperation, common-law jurisdiction, institutional confidence.
• India’s e-Courts and NJDG stack gives it a tangible offer to bring to a BRICS judicial platform, not just a normative pitch.
• The BRICS expansion since 2024 has diluted the grouping’s coherence but widened its potential commercial-legal footprint.

Interview, be ready for:

• Probe: “What is a Chief Justices’ Forum for, if it cannot make law?” Answer through mutual recognition, judicial capacity building and institutional confidence.
• Probe: “What does it mean for India to be the largest common-law jurisdiction in BRICS?” Answer through comparative procedural culture, not through case volume alone.

Sources: Supreme Court of India, BRICS India 2026, MEA

Source: Supreme Court Hosts BRICS Chief Justices' Forum in New Delhi — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Current Affairs