Supreme Court Proposes High Courts Publish Information On Judgments Reserved For Over 6 Months

With a view to ensure transparency and accountability in the judiciary, the Supreme Court today proposed that all High Courts have a dashboard on their websites which indicates dates when judgments were reserved, pronounced and uploaded by their respective judges.

The Court emphasized on bringing in public domain number of judgments reserved but not pronounced for over 6 months, as well as those which are pronounced after 6 months.

"Let everybody know that in this High Court, how many judgments have been reserved by any xyz and how many of them have been pronounced, and within how many days those have been pronounced. This information should be automated, available in public domain. How many pronounced after 6 months and how many are awaiting pronouncement after 6 months, and most importantly how many days it took in uploading the judgments. Is the judgment, after pronouncement, readily available on the website?" said Justice Surya Kant.

"That will show the transparency and the accountability of the judiciary to the people" said Justice Bagchi.

A bench of Justices Kant and  Bagchi was dealing with the case where taking note of long pendency of reserved judgments in Jharkhand High Court, Registrar Generals of all High Courts were directed to submit a report on cases where judgments were not pronounced by May 5, 2025 despite reserving them on or before January 31.

Today, it was noted that some High Courts had filed their affidavits, but others had not. Calling on the non-compliant Registrar Generals to furnish their affidavits in 2 weeks, the bench warned that the Registrar Generals shall remain personally present if there is failure to comply.

In addition, after going through a report filed by Amicus Curiae Fauzia Shakil, the bench directed all High Courts to file affidavits with regard to:

"(1) Existing mechanism evolved by them to bring in public domain the dates when a judgment is reserved, pronounced and uploaded on website;

(2) Details of the judgments reserved after 31 January 2025 and the dates of their pronouncement till 31 October 2025, alongwith the dates when they were uploaded on website;

(3) High Courts may also give their suggestions for improvement and for uniform pattern of disclosure of information to the general public in respect of subject issue and the difficulties/adverse consequences, if any, which HCs might be apprehending to experience in the event of such information being brought into public domain."

The Court said that the needful shall be done in 4 weeks.

During the hearing, Justice Kant noted that in some High Courts, there was remarkable improvement on the subject issue.

Case Title: PILA PAHAN@ PEELA PAHAN AND ORS. Versus THE STATE OF JHARKHAND AND ANR., W.P.(Crl.) No. 169/2025 

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