Jharkhand HC pronounced 32 judgements in 61 pending cases: SC told

New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) The Supreme Court was on Friday informed that the Jharkhand High Court has delivered 32 judgements out of the 61 cases, where verdicts were reserved for over six months.

The Jharkhand High Court had come under the top court's scanner for not pronouncing verdicts for years, particularly in criminal matters including death and life sentence cases.

A bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi was told by senior advocate Ajit Sinha, appearing for the high court, that the remaining judgements will be pronounced within a month's time and judges have been working on them.

"They have delivered 32 judgments till now and the remaining will be done in a month's time. The oral message of the court was placed before the judges of the high court and they are working on giving verdicts in remaining cases," Sinha said.

The bench told the counsel that the court will be taking a holistic view in the matter and posted it for hearing in January and tagged it with pending matters.

On August 8, the top court suggested the Jharkhand High Court judges to take leave for penning verdicts after observing there were dozens of cases in which judgments weren't pronounced.

It had asked the judges to take their sanctioned leaves and complete the pending work.

Sinha had earlier informed the court that till January 31, there were 61 cases in which judgements were not pronounced after reserving the verdicts for over six months.

The top court had passed the order in a batch of pleas in which students of faraway tribal areas of Jharkhand complained of judgements not being pronounced since 2023 in cases on appointments of home guards.

On May 16, the top court asked the high court to file a status report of pending cases in which judgements were reserved on or before January 31 in both criminal and civil cases.

Students complained their case was last heard on April 6, 2023 but no verdict was pronounced.

According to the pleas, the aspirants of home guard positions have sought a direction to the high court for pronouncement of the verdict in their cases.

The petitioners moved the high court after the Jharkhand government cancelled the recruitment for over 1,000 posts of home guards advertised in 2017, despite their names having featured in the merit list.

The high court, after having heard the matter since 2021, reserved the pleas filed by over 70 aspirants for orders on April 6, 2023.

Similarly, on July 21, the top court was informed that the high court has delivered verdict in cases of 10 convicts out of which six were on death row in a week, after they moved the Supreme Court complaining of delay in deciding their appeals against conviction despite the verdicts having been reserved years ago.

Advocate Fauzia Shakil, appearing for the convicts had submitted that the high court pronounced verdicts in a week's time after the top court on July 14 issued notice on their plea.

On May 13, the top court, which was hearing the pleas of life convicts, observed that the high court judges were taking breaks "unnecessarily" and called for their performance audits. PTI MNL ZMN