Expressing serious concern over the rising number of complaints it received on the efficiency of High Court judges, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said that it was high time that a performance audit was conducted to evaluate the functioning of these judges.
Noting that it was a larger issue which required immediate attention, the Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice NK Singh orally observed that while some judges worked very hard, there were certain others who took frequent and unnecessary breaks.
The Court stressed on the need to conduct a performance audit to know how much the judiciary was spending on the High Court judges and what output it was getting.
The top court of the country made these oral observations while hearing a petition filed by four life convicts belonging to Scheduled Tribe or Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities.
The petitioners alleged that the Jharkhand High Court failed to deliver a verdict on their criminal appeals despite reserving the verdict for more than three years.
The Bench had earlier sought information on the status of these cases.
On Tuesday, the Apex Court noted that verdicts in all four cases have been pronounced. While appeals were allowed in three cases, there was a difference of opinion in the fourth case, and the matter was referred to another Bench.
The Bench was apprised that all four petitioners were consequently released from jail.
On May 5, the Apex Court had also called for reports from all High Courts with information on cases where a verdict was yet to be pronounced by the High Court, despite the matter having been reserved for judgment.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court observed that the issued raised on May 5 was of paramount importance and went to the root of criminal justice system. The Bench hinted that it may issue guidelines to ensure that judgments were pronounced without any delay.
On May 9, the top court of the country called for reports from High Courts on the dates on which they pronounced the verdicts and the dates when the same were published on court websites.
On May 13, the Bench orally observed that such issues required deeper analysis and mandatory guidelines by this Court, so that convicts or undertrials were not compelled to lose faith in the justice delivery system and to avoid the petitions like one in the present case.
The Apex Court would hear the matter in July now.