The Supreme Court has come down hard on High Courts for dragging their feet in uploading judgments after pronouncing orders, warning that such delays risk undermining justice.
A bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Sandeep Mehta issued the caution while flagging a shocking instance from the Punjab & Haryana High Court, which took two years and five months to upload a detailed judgment in a criminal appeal - long after affirming the conviction.
The convict argued before the apex court that the massive delay itself should nullify his conviction. But the Supreme Court disagreed, saying that a slow upload cannot erase a valid conviction if evidence is solid. “Despite the delay, the testimony of two eyewitnesses inspires confidence,” the Court ruled.
Yet the bench expressed “grave concern,” warning that such practices “undermine transparency and prejudice litigants.” It reminded courts of the landmark Anil Rai v. State of Bihar (2001) ruling, which mandated that judgments be delivered within three months of being reserved.
The Court also pointed to more recent rulings, including Ravindra Pratap Shahi v. State of U.P., directing Registrars to escalate matters to the Chief Justice if judgments aren’t pronounced within three months, and Ratilal Jhaverbhai Parmar v. State of Gujarat, which stressed that reasoned judgments must follow within 2–5 days of pronouncing the operative order.
In the end, the appeal was dismissed, but the Supreme Court left High Courts with a sharp warning: justice delayed in writing is justice denied in spirit.