Furnish details on timelines of verdicts on websites: SC to HCs

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed all high courts to furnish detailed reports on the timelines of their judgments, including the dates when cases were reserved for verdict, when judgments were pronounced, and when they were uploaded on court websites, while stressing that such transparency would enhance judicial accountability and reduce uncertainty for litigants.

- Utkarsh Anand

‘A bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said that once collated, this data must be placed in the public domain, so that the performance of each of the 25 high courts in delivering and publishing judgments can be tracked in a uniform and transparent manner.

The bench noted that while a uniform format for collecting information was still being developed, the exercise was already yielding positive results.

It emphasised that the eventual goal was to make the information accessible to the public, serving as a tool of institutional transparency. “Most importantly, how many days it took in uploading the judgments,” it underlined.