The Supreme Court of India asked High Courts to respond to draft guidelines ensuring timely pronouncement of reserved judgments, stressing the need to address long-pending cases and improve judicial efficiency across trial and appellate courts.
The Supreme Court asked high courts nationwide to respond to draft guidelines intended to ensure judgments in high courts and trial courts are pronounced promptly after being reserved.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi on Monday, while hearing a matter involving appeals from life convicts that have been pending for years before the Jharkhand High Court, said,
“These guidelines are only to enhance accountability in our system and strengthen the judicial institution,”
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Amicus curiae Advocate Fauzia Shakil presented the draft guidelines to the court. The bench closed the hearing for judgment and requested feedback on the proposed measures.
Praising Shakil’s framework as eloquent and commendable, the court directed that,
“The registry of this court shall circulate the guidelines to registrar generals of all high courts, giving them 10 days…to submit their suggestions on the practical difficulties they may face in implementing these guidelines.”
Among the proposals is a requirement that judgments be pronounced within a maximum of three months from the date they are reserved, along with real-time case monitoring on high-court websites.
The Supreme Court took up the matter after convicts approached it, saying their criminal appeals had been heard but the judgments remained pending for long periods.
Earlier, the Court had instructed Registrar Generals of all high courts to provide details of judgments reserved after 31.01.2025, the dates those judgments were pronounced through 31.10.2025, and the dates on which they were posted online.
The Court also asked each high court to describe its existing practice for disclosing the date a judgment was reserved, the date of pronouncement, and the date it was uploaded, and to file that information within four weeks.
The order added,
“The High Courts may also give their suggestions for improvement and for a uniform pattern of disclosure of information to the general public in respect of the ‘subject issue’ and the difficulties or adverse consequences, if any, which the High Courts might apprehend to experience in the event of such information being brought to the public domain.”,
The issue surfaced after a writ petition by convicts whose appeals had been heard but remained undecided for extended periods.
The Supreme Court first sought status reports from the relevant high courts.
The petition sought directions to the Jharkhand High Court to pronounce judgments in Criminal Appeals that petitioners said were finally heard by a Division Bench on 27.04.2022, 05.05.2022, 07.06.2022 and 05.01.2022.
Following review, the Supreme Court directed Registrar Generals of all high courts to report on cases in which judgments had been reserved on or before 31.01.2025 and were still pending as of the order date, 05.05.2025, and to file compliance reports after being notified by the Registry.
In response, the high courts of Karnataka, Bombay, Orissa, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Manipur, Sikkim, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Madras, Rajasthan and Calcutta submitted their reports.
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The Court was also informed that Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab & Haryana, Kerala and Gauhati had subsequently filed their reports; these were complete but not yet received by the amicus curiae.
However, the bench observed that Allahabad, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, Patna, and Telangana High Courts had neither submitted reports nor requested more time.
The bench noted,
“They are not coming forward even to assist this Court, as no one has entered an appearance on their behalf,”
Case Title: PILA PAHAN @ PEELA PAHAN & ORS. VERSUS THE STATE OF JHARKHAND & ANR.