High Court’s conduct in not furnishing reasons is strongly deprecated. Reliance on Balaji Baliram Mupade v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 2020 SC 5758; Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Zaixhu Xie, (2020) SCC OnLine SC 1145 and Sudipta Chakrobarty v. Ranaghat S.D. Hospital, AIR 2021 SC 3344 is warranted.

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There is no doubt, Public Interest Litigation is meant to be entertained for bona fide causes and not to aid either misguided individuals in their quest for publicity or for wreaking vendetta. Court had emphasized, need to keep out ‘busybodies’, who have no interest in matters of public interest, in Jasbhai Desai v. Roshan Kumar, (1976) 3 SCR 58 and had stated, about such individuals, “they masquerade as crusaders for justice.”

– Hon’ble Justice S. Ravindra Bhat, Shaikh Ansar Ahmad v. State of Maharashtra, [Civil Appeal No. 695 of 2021].

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We apply law laid down in Balaji Baliram Mupade v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 2020 SC 5758 and in earlier decisions.

– Hon’ble Justice M.R. Shah, Indrajeet Yadav v. Santosh Singh, [Criminal Appeal No. 577 of 2022] decided on 19.04.2022.

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No reason, suffers vice of arbitrariness. Brij Nandan Jaiswal v. Munna, (2009) 1 SCC 678 reiterated same position as was observed in Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v. Rajesh Ranjan, (2004) 7 SCC 528. In serious cases like murder, reasons justifying grant of bail are necessary.

– Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, Hon’ble Justice N.V. Ramana, Ms. Y v. State of Rajasthan, [Criminal Appeal No. 649 of 2022] decided on 19.04.2022.

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In recent times, Court has suo motu initiated proceedings having noticed attitudinal patterns of Learned Judges of High Courts.

We regret to observe, Learned Judge, having realised in April, 2024 of having omitted to assign reasons for ‘dismissal’, could have avoided committing an act of indiscretion by proceeding to assign reasons more than a year later. In accordance with highest standards, need of the hour required the matter back on board once again for fresh consideration.

It would have been prudent to make reasons available in public domain preferably within 2 days and, in any case, not beyond 5 days to eliminate any kind of suspicion.  

– Hon’ble Justice Dipankar Datta, Ratilal Jhaverbhai Parmar v. State of Gujarat, [Civil Appeal No. 11000 of 2024] decided on 21.10.2024.

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Anil Rai v. State of Bihar, (2001) 7 SCC 318 dealt with state of affairs prevalent in some High Courts wherein after conclusion of arguments, Judgments are not pronounced for a period spread over years. Deprecating such practice, this Court in State of Punjab v. Jagdev Singh Talwandi, (1984) 1 SCC 596 issued directions which were restated time and again on several occasions including in Zahira Habibulla H. Sheikh v. State of Gujarat, (2004) 4 SCC 158; Mangat Ram v. State of Haryana, (2008) 7 SCC 96; Ajay Singh v. State of Chhattisgarh, (2017) 3 SCC 330; Balaji Baliram Mupade v. State of Maharashtra, (2021) 12 SCC 603; K. Madan Mohan Rao v. Bheemrao Baswanthrao Patil, 2022 INSC 1025 and Ratilal Jhaverbhai Parmar v. State of Gujarat, 2024 INSC 801.

Therefore, what is required today is of adherence to Anil Rai. We direct Registrar General of High Courts to furnish to their Chief Justice, a list of cases where Judgment Reserved is not pronounced within remaining period of that Month and keep on repeating same for Three Months. If Judgment is not delivered within Three Months, Registrar General shall place matters before Chief Justice and Chief Justice shall bring it to notice of concerned Bench for pronouncing within Two Weeks thereafter, failing which matter be assigned to another Bench.

– Hon’ble Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra, Ravindra Pratap Sahi v. State of U.P., [Criminal Appeal Nos. 3700-3701 of 2025] decided on 25.08.2025