Supreme Court pulls up High court judges, sets 3-month deadline to pronounce verdicts
PTC News Desk: The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up judges of the high court and set a three-month deadline to pronounce the verdicts.
Expressing concern over High Court judges frequently reserving judgments for extended periods, the Supreme Court has imposed a three-month deadline for verdict delivery. If a judgment is not pronounced within two weeks after this deadline, the case will be reassigned to another judge.
The Bench highlighted that most High Courts lack a system for litigants to report delays to the concerned Bench or the Chief Justice. It directed that if a judgment remains pending beyond three months, the Registrar General of the High Court must present the matter before the Chief Justice, who will then alert the concerned Bench to issue the order within two weeks; failing this, the case should be allocated to a different Bench.
Terming it “extremely shocking and surprising”, a Bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra on Monday said, “In such a situation, the litigant loses his faith in the judicial process defeating the ends of justice.”
Justice Mishra said, “This Court is repeatedly confronted with similar matters wherein proceedings are kept pending in the High Court for more than three months, in some cases for more than six months or years wherein judgments are not delivered after hearing the matter.”
“Some high courts have adopted the practice of pronouncing the final order without reasoned judgment, which is not delivered for a substantial length of time depriving the aggrieved party of the opportunity to seek further judicial redressal,” it noted.
- With inputs from agencies
