The Supreme Court was informed on Friday that the Jharkhand High Court has pronounced 32 of the 61 judgments that had remained reserved for over six months, drawing scrutiny from the top court over prolonged delays in several criminal and service matters.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi took note of submissions by senior advocate Ajit Sinha, appearing for the high court, that the remaining judgments are expected to be delivered within a month. He said the Supreme Court’s concerns had been conveyed to the judges of the Jharkhand High Court, who were now working on the pending verdicts.
“They have delivered 32 judgments till now and the remaining will be done in a month’s time. The oral message of the court was placed before the judges of the high court and they are working on giving verdicts in remaining cases,” Sinha submitted.
The bench said it would take a “holistic view” of the matter and listed it for further hearing in January, tagging it with connected petitions.
The Jharkhand High Court has faced sustained criticism from the Supreme Court for not pronouncing judgments for years, particularly in criminal matters involving death sentences and life imprisonment. On August 8, the top court had even suggested that high court judges avail their sanctioned leave to finish writing pending verdicts.
Earlier, Sinha had disclosed that as on January 31, there were 61 cases in which judgments were reserved for more than six months.
The issue initially reached the Supreme Court through a batch of petitions filed by students from remote tribal areas, who complained that the Jharkhand High Court had not delivered verdicts in their home-guard recruitment cases since 2023.
The recruitment, advertised in 2017 for over 1,000 posts, was cancelled by the state government despite the petitioners featuring in the merit list. The high court, after hearing the matter since 2021, had reserved the verdict on April 6, 2023, but pronounced none for more than a year, prompting the students to approach the Supreme Court.
On May 16, the top court directed the high court to submit a status report on all cases in which judgments were reserved on or before January 31, whether civil or criminal.
In a separate development cited before the bench, the Supreme Court had been told on July 21 that the high court delivered judgments in the appeals of 10 convicts—six of them on death row—within a week after the convicts approached the Supreme Court complaining of years-long delays. Their lawyer, advocate Fauzia Shakil, had said the verdicts were pronounced soon after the Supreme Court issued notice on July 14.
On May 13, while hearing life convicts who faced similar delays, the Supreme Court observed that judges of the Jharkhand High Court were “taking breaks unnecessarily” and even suggested performance audits.
