Supreme Court asks Jharkhand HC judges to go on leave to pen pending verdicts

Justice Kant asked the counsel to convey the bench’s suggestion to the HC Chief Justice.

The bench was hearing a clutch of petitions by students from the state’s tribal areas contending that the judgments in the matter of appointment of home guards were yet to be pronounced though the hearing was over in 2023. The candidates whose names figured in the rank list had moved HC after the Jharkhand government cancelled the recruitment for over 1,000 posts. The HC, after hearing, reserved its verdict in the matter in April 2023.

Sinha, however, said the HC had pronounced orders in the matter of students.

Friday’s developments are only the latest in what happened in a series of petitions filed before the top court since April this year complaining about the HC sitting over verdicts reserved years ago.

Hearing a similar plea by four convicts who submitted that the judgment in their appeals were not pronounced though reserved couple of years back, a bench presided by Justice Kant had on April 23 “directed” the “Registrar General of the High Court of Jharkhand… to file a status report in sealed cover in respect of all the reserved judgments, which are more than two months ago” including “Bench-wise details.”

Following this, the Jharkhand HC Registrar General filed a report mentioning that 56 such cases were pending where judgments were reserved but not pronounced.

Perusing the report, the SC had then noted that the list did not contain the appeal by the four convicts, setting off doubts that the number may be higher.

The SC said that the report “reveals that there are 56 matters, including some Criminal Appeals, where a learned Division Bench of the High Court has finally heard the matters on different dates ranging from 04.01.2022 till 16.12.2024 but the final pronouncements are still awaited. There are 11 Single Bench matters also before another Hon’ble Judge where the judgments are reserved on different dates between 25.07.2024 to 27.09.2024”.

Another plea was filed before the bench by 10 convicts of whom six were on death row. They contended that the hearing in their appeals was over in 2022 and 2023 and judgments reserved.

It came to light that only eight of these matters did not figure in the HC Registrar General’s report. A scrutiny of the eight matters showed that the judgments were reserved by two-judge benches presided by Justice Rangon Mukhopadhyay. In seven of them, judgment was reserved in 2022 and in one instance it was reserved in 2023.

The judgment in the matter of the four convicts which led to the April 23 order too was reserved by two-judge benches presided by Justice Mukhopadhyay.

On May 5, 2025, The Indian Express had reported that after the top court’s April 23 order, “the Jharkhand High Court listed and pronounced judgments in over 75 criminal appeals in just one week.” On May 5, the SC took note of the news report and directed that it “be kept on record”. On July 21, the SC was informed that the HC had delivered verdict in the cases of 10 convicts too.