The Supreme Court of India has directed all High Courts to disclose how long judges take to deliver and upload judgments. This move aims to promote transparency, accountability, and timely justice within the Indian judiciary.
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NEW DELHI: In a landmark move to enhance judicial transparency and accountability, the Supreme Court of India has directed all High Courts to publicly disclose how long their judges take to pronounce judgments in reserved cases.
A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi issued the direction while hearing a plea filed by four life convicts from the Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities, who complained that the Jharkhand High Court had not delivered verdicts in their criminal appeals even after reserving them two to three years ago.
Justice Surya Kant, who is also the designated Chief Justice of India, emphasized that transparency in the judiciary must extend beyond litigants and be visible to the public at large.
“Let everybody know how many judgments have been reserved by any judge and how many are pronounced; within how many days the judgments are made available in the public domain; and how many days High Courts actually take to upload judgments,”
Justice Kant remarked.
Justice Joymalya Bagchi further suggested that each High Court should maintain a public dashboard showing real-time data on judgment reservations, pronouncements, and upload dates.
“That will show the transparency and accountability of the judiciary to the people,”
he added.
Supreme Court’s Directive to High Courts
The Bench instructed all High Courts to submit detailed reports on their current systems for disclosing:
- Dates when judgments were reserved,
- Time taken between reservation and pronouncement, and
- Dates when judgments were uploaded on official websites.
The Supreme Court specifically asked for data on judgments reserved after January 31, 2025, and pronounced up to October 31, 2025, including their upload timelines.
The Bench also sought the High Courts’ feedback on establishing a uniform national mechanism for public disclosure of judicial timelines.
While there are no statutory deadlines for pronouncing judgments, judicial convention expects that verdicts be delivered within two to six months of being reserved. However, both Supreme Court and High Court judges often take much longer, sometimes over a year, citing complex legal issues or heavy caseloads.
This prolonged delay has long been criticized for eroding public confidence in the justice system. The Supreme Court’s latest intervention seeks to introduce systemic accountability and ensure timely access to justice.
The Bench acknowledged that the disclosure of such data might raise apprehensions among High Courts, particularly regarding external scrutiny.
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“Our intention is not to act as a school principal and monitor everything, but there should be broad guidelines. Judges should know the task before them,”
the Supreme Court observed in its earlier September hearing.
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