The Supreme Court has voiced strong concern over long delays by High Courts in pronouncing judgments after hearings are concluded, warning that such a situation erodes “litigants’ faith in the judicial process”.
A Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Prashant Kumar Mishra reiterated that if a judgment is not delivered within three months of being reserved, the Registrar General must place the case before the Chief Justice of the High Court, who will call upon the concerned Bench to pronounce it within two weeks. The bench said that If the order is not passed even then, the Chief Justice will reassign the matter to another Bench. It added that the Registrar General of each High Court must furnish to the Chief Justice a list of cases where reserved judgments are not pronounced within that month, and keep on repeating the same for three months.
Disposing of a special leave petition (SLP) concerning a criminal appeal pending since 2008 in the Allahabad High Court, the apex court termed it “extremely shocking and surprising” that the judgment was not delivered for nearly a year from the date when the appeal was heard. The delay was confirmed by the report of the Registrar General of the Allahabad High Court, which noted that despite repeated listings before different Benches, the criminal appeal remained undecided. The Bench directed that a copy of its judgment aiming to reduce delays be circulated to Registrars General of all High Courts for compliance.
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