Supreme Court wants High Court judges’ ability to deliver judgments in time to be in the public domain

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (November 12, 2025) said High Courts should put it out in the public domain, for the world to see, how long their judges take to pronounce judgments in pending cases.

A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a plea by four life convicts from Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities who complained that the Jharkhand High Court had not pronounced its verdicts in their criminal appeals even after reserving the cases for judgment two to three years ago.

The Bench had emphasised an urgent need to evaluate the performance of High Court judges in a previous hearing in September.

There are no specific timelines within which judges have to deliver judgments. The convention is that the judiciary ought to pronounce judgments within a reasonable time, from two to six months, of reserving cases.

However, judges, including in the apex 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.

On Wednesday (November 12, 2025), Justice Kant, who is Chief Justice of India-designate, indicated that reforms and transparency in judicial functioning must not be limited to litigants alone, but should also meet the legitimate expectations of 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 observed.

Justice Bagchi said there ought to be a dashboard on High Court websites, exclusively focussing on the reservation and pronouncement of judgments.

“That will show the transparency and accountability of the judiciary to the people,” Justice Bagchi remarked.

The apex court directed State High Courts to file reports on their existing mechanisms to bring into the public domain the dates when pending judgments were reserved, the time taken between the reservation of judgment and their pronouncement, and when a pronounced judgment was actually uploaded on their official websites.

The Bench has specifically sought from the High Courts details of judgments reserved after January 31, 2025 and details of pronouncement of judgments till October 31, 2025. This would include the uploading of the judgments on the websites.

The High Courts were asked for their views about framing a uniform mechanism to disclose the dates of reservation, pronouncement of judgments and their uploading on websites.

The Bench said the High Courts could be frank about their apprehensions about laying bare such details in the public domain. The court said High Courts must be frank about adverse consequences that may result with such disclosures.

“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 apex court had observed during the September hearing.