All HCs should upload details of time taken by judges to deliver: SC
POLITY – JUDICIARY
13 NOVEMBER 2025
- The Supreme Court said all High Courts should put out in the public domain the time taken by their judges to pronounce verdicts in pending cases.
- A Bench of Justices Surya Kant (Chief Justice of India-designate) and Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a plea by four life convicts from the Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.
- They had complained that the Jharkhand High Court had not pronounced its verdicts on their criminal appeals even after reserving the cases for judgment two to three years ago.
- There are no specific timelines within which judges have to deliver verdicts.
- The convention is that they ought to pronounce judgments within a reasonable time, from two to six months, of reserving cases.
- However, judges, including in the Supreme Court and the High Courts, have in practice reserved judgments for well over a year before delivering them.
- This may be due to the complexity of the question of law involved or the burden of work.
- Justice Kant indicated that reforms and transparency in judicial functioning must not be limited to litigants alone, it should also meet the legitimate expectations of the public at large.
