Appellant filed a civil application u/Art.227 of the Constitution before the High Court – Dismissed on 01.03.2023 in open Court without saying “reasons would follow” – Appellant pleaded that he was under the impression that the High Court had only reserved the order on 01.03.2023 in the proceeding – Reasoned order was uploaded on High Court website on 30.04.2024 and ante-dated the same to 01.03.2023 – Report of Registrar General of High Court was called which established the Appellant’s allegations as being substantially correct:
Held: Breach of norms of ethics – The concerned judge did not even express that “reasons would follow” for dismissal of the petition and hence the concerned judge ceased to retain jurisdiction over the petition and foreclosed assignment of reasons for the dismissal later in time – Even if the concerned judge were to express that reasons for the dismissal would follow, no valid reason to pass detailed reasoned order after lapse of one year rather the correct approach would have been to bring matter on board again, recall the verbal order of dismissal and place before the Hon’ble Chief Justice of High Court to reassign the matter to another bench for fresh consideration. [Paras 12-15, 17]
Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done – Guidelines issued to High Courts for timely pronouncement of judgments – Principles enshrined in Order XX of Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 discussed: Held: Practice of High Courts of pronouncing operative parts without timely passing reasoned order/judgment criticised – Reliance placed on observations made in Balaji Baliram Mupade vs State of Maharashtra (2021) 12 SCC 603 that judicial discipline demands promptness in judgment delivery as knowing result without reasons brings aggrieved party to a standstill and violates their right u/Art.21 of the Constitution. [Para 5]
Order XX CPC governs “pronouncements of judgments” – As a matter of practice, the learned judge dictates judgment in open court immediately after the hearing is over which, in their assessment, may not consume more than 15/20 minutes however if a judgment, in their assessment, is likely to take more than 20/25 minutes, the learned judge tends to pronounce operative part together with the outcome while expressing “reasons to/would follow” to make optimum use judicial time and hear more cases that are on board – However, the said practice is seemingly turning into a counterproductive exercise and is rather delaying justice delivery. [Para 19]
It would be prudent to leave to it to learned Judges to pick any of three options: (i) dictation of the judgment in open court,
(ii) reserving the judgment and pronouncing it on a future day, or
(iii) pronouncing the operative part and the outcome, i.e., “dismissed” or “allowed” or “disposed of”, while simultaneously expressing that reasons would follow in a detailed final judgment supporting such outcome – In case third option is chosen, it would be in interest of justice to make reasons available in public domain within a time frame work of 2-5 days – In case the suggested timeframe cannot be followed owing to workload, it would be a better option to reserve the judgment. [Para 19]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Niti Richariya, Hony. Associate Editor (Verified by: Liz Mathew, Sr. Adv.). Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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