Incoherent judgments have serious impact on dignity of judicial institutions: SC
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said that incoherent judgments have a serious impact on the dignity of judicial institutions and suggested guidelines based on a formula to be followed by the constitutional courts while writing verdicts.
The top court said that to ensure accessibility of verdicts, especially for those with a disability, all judicial institutions must endeavour that the judgments and orders being published by them do not carry improperly placed watermarks as they end up making the documents inaccessible for persons with a visual disability who use screen readers to access them.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna, which set aside an order of Himachal Pradesh High Court on the ground that it was incomprehensible, said that "the purpose of judicial writing is not to confuse or confound the reader behind the veneer of complex language".
The bench passed the verdict on August 16 on an appeal filed by the State Bank of India and others in a matter arising out of the disciplinary action against an employee.
It said: "Although it is unfortunate that we have to set aside the impugned judgment and direct its remand due to its incoherence, we have taken the opportunity to lay out the discussion on judgment writing. Incoherent judgments have a serious impact upon the dignity of our institutions."
The top court added that though it has laid down some broad guidelines, individual judges can indeed have different ways of writing judgments and continue to have variations in their styles of expression.
judgment cannot be. While judges may have their own style of judgment writing, they must ensure lucidity in writing across these styles," it said in the verdict uploaded on ay on the apex court's website. It said that judgment writing is a layered exercise and in one layer, a judgment addresses the concerns and arguments of parties to a forensic contest while in another layer, a judgment addresses stakeholders beyond the conflict.
