Some high court judges unable to deliver on their tasks: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday lamented some high court judges being unable to "deliver on their tasks" as it called for their "performance evaluation".

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh said though it did not want to act like a "school principal" for the high court judges but there ought to be a self-management system to ensure "files don't pile up on their desks".

"There are judges who work day and night and are giving outstanding disposal of cases. But at the same time, there are some judges who unfortunately are unable to deliver - whatever may be the reasons, good or bad, we don't know and maybe there are some circumstances," the bench said.

The bench added, "Suppose a judge is hearing a criminal appeal, then we don't expect him to decide 50 cases in a day and deciding one criminal appeal in a day is itself a very big achievement. But in a bail matter, if a judge says I will decide only one bail matter in a day, that is something which requires introspection."

The top court, as a result, stressed on "performance evaluation" but underlined the question of parameters and guidelines guiding the process.

"Our intention is not to act as a school principal and there should be broad guidelines so that judges should know what is the task before them and on how much task they must deliver. There is a legitimate expectation of the public at large from the judiciary," the bench added.

The observations came on criminal appeals, where some life and death row convicts have knocked at the door alleging that the Jharkhand high court has not delivered verdicts on their criminal appeals despite reserving verdicts for years.

However, the high court later delivered the verdicts in their case and acquitted many of the convicts.

Advocate Fauzia Shakil, who appeared in the case, said a chart on the status of judgment delivery by various high courts and highlighted that some high courts have not given the data in a prescribed format.

The bench, asked her to file high court data where cases were reserved; date of pronouncements and date of uploading verdicts within two weeks.

Senior advocate Ajit Sinha was asked to assist in the matter.

Justice Kant pointed out that some judges have the habit of adjourning the cases unnecessarily and said it could be dangerous for the image of the judges as has been the case with some of them in the past.

"Every judge should have a self-management system to ensure that case files don't pile up on their desk. Some of the judges have a habit or an anxiety of hearing more and more cases and as a result they unnecessarily adjourn the cases," the judge said.

The bench said that in an earlier verdict of the apex court it has been held that where only the operative part of a judgment is pronounced, reasons ought to follow within five days of the pronouncement,

It said unless the timeline is modified by the apex court, the high court is bound to follow it.