'Madras High Court Fastest In Disposing Criminal Cases, Allahabad & Patna HCs Experiencing Difficulty': CJI Surya Kant

While dealing with a case raising concern about delays in hearing of bail matters, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant today lauded the Madras High Court as the "fastest High Court" in the country ensuring timely disposal of criminal cases.

The CJI further noted that the most "problematic" High Courts are the Allahabad High Court and the Patna High Court, with the former suffering a huge volume of cases and therefore a slow disposal.

"Madras High Court – It is the fastest High Court in terms of disposal of criminal matters...they are dealing with 2018 division bench criminal appeals," CJI said.

The CJI added :

"Most problematic HCs are Allahabad and Patna. Allahabad HC – we understand the difficulty. Despite the strength of the judges, etc…who are hearing 200+ cases in a day…still it is unmanageable because of the volume. Maybe some new dynamics will have to be [established] there", the CJI said.

The CJI also noted that the pendency of over 63000 bail applications before the Madhya Pradesh High Court a year ago posed an "alarming situation", but the number may have declined since.

A bench of CJI Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was dealing with a case where it had earlier raised concern about the pendency of bail matters before High Courts. As the Court had called for details of the pending bail applications, today it was informed about the pendency, from which it appeared that most High Courts had taken steps to address the situation, but Allahabad and Patna High Courts continued to raise concern.

In response, the Court proposed various suggestions to ensure expeditious disposal of bail applications in High Courts. These included:

- Bail matters be listed on a weekly or fortnightly basis through an automatic software-based mechanism;

- Mandatory filing of status reports before the first hearing, and advance service of bail petitions on the office of the Advocate General or designated government agencies;

- Evolve mechanisms to ensure fresh bail applications are listed on alternate days or at least within a week of filing, with mandatory representation from the Union or State;

- Automatic re-listing of matters that could not be taken up and the fixation of an outer timeline for disposal of bail applications.

It was also stressed that High Courts should discourage casual or avoidable adjournments sought by government counsels.

Notably, many petitions of late have been coming before the Supreme Court seeking expeditious hearing before Allahabad High Court. The Court has been circumspect in requesting the High Court to give the petitioners out-of-turn hearing, while underlining that the High Court is already overburdened (despite best efforts) and the High Court is not subordinate to the Supreme Court. Even so, keeping in view the peculiar facts in some cases, out-of-turn hearings/considering of petitioner's case in a sympathetic manner have been requested by the Court in some matters.

Case Title: SUNNY CHAUHAN v. STATE OF HARYANA | SLP(Crl) No. 1613/2026