New Delhi: Expressing surprise at the fact that High Court judges often reserve judgments for months, the Supreme Court has set a three-month deadline for them to pronounce judgments. Failing to do so, if the judgment is not pronounced within two weeks of the deadline, the case/matters concerned will be assigned to another judge.
Terming it as “extremely shocking”, a bench of Justices Sanjay Krol and Prashant Kumar Mishra said on Monday, “In such a situation, the litigant loses faith in the judicial process, which defeats the purpose of justice.”
Writing the judgment for the bench, Justice Mishra said, “This court has repeatedly been dealing with cases where proceedings in the High Court remain pending for more than three months, in some cases for six months or even years, where decisions are not delivered even after hearing.”
It noted that, “Some High Courts have adopted the practice of passing final orders without any reasoned decision, which is not given for a considerable period of time, thereby depriving the aggrieved party of the opportunity to seek further judicial relief.”
Noting that “in most High Courts there is no mechanism where the litigant can inform the concerned Bench or the Chief Justice about the delay in delivery of the decision,” the bench said, “If the decision is not delivered within three months, the Registrar General (of the High Court) shall place the matter before the Chief Justice (of the High Court) for orders and the Chief Justice shall bring it to the notice of the concerned Bench so that the order may be pronounced within the next two weeks, failing which the matter shall be referred to another Bench.