After Supreme Court rap, Jharkhand HC decides 75 criminal appeals in a week

On April 23, a bench comprising justices Surya Kant and Kotiswar Singh was hearing a plea by four murder convicts whose cases were heard and reserved for verdict over three years ago. The bench had directed the Registrar General of the Jharkhand HC to submit a status report in a sealed cover by May 5, detailing bench-wise judgments which were reserved two months ago or before. The Indian Express tracked daily cause lists of the High Court for over a week after the SC took note of the issue.

Between April 24 to May 2, the Jharkhand HC pronounced judgments in 75 criminal appeals — 11 of those were reserved for judgment in 2024, and the rest in 2025. The oldest reserved case, from Septemeber 30, 2024, an appeal from 2005 involving rape accused, was disposed of with an acquittal on April 28.

Of the 75 verdicts, 19 criminal appeals had been reserved by benches headed by Justice Ananda Sen. On April 28, Justice Ananda Sen pronounced the maximum verdicts in a day, in nine appeals. On April 24, a day after the SC rap, Justice Sen-headed bench pronounced the verdict in eight appeals.

On April 28, a division bench of Justices Rongon Mukhopadhyay and Arun Kumar Rai listed 15 appeals, including death sentence reference pleas, for judgment. Of these, the bench pronounced the verdict in 12, while postponing two for pronouncement to May 1.

The SC petition by the four convicts also stated that apart from them, there are 10 other convicts in the same situation before the Jharkhand HC, where their appeals have been heard but judgments have not been pronounced “for approximately three years”.

In the case of the 10 other convicts, appeals filed between 2014-2019, judgments were reserved between January 2022 and June 2022, where judgments remain to be pronounced, even three years later. The convicts in these appeals have undergone incarceration ranging from 7 to 14 years. Cases of two petitioners before the SC have been listed for orders on May 5.

Delay in pronouncing judgments has been a key area of concern in tackling the pendency of cases. In a 2001 ruling in Anil Rai versus the State of Bihar, SC had issued guidelines requiring a mention of dates when a judgment is reserved and finally pronounced in the order for accountability.

The guidelines also state that if the judgment, for any reason, is not pronounced within six months, “any of the parties of the said shall be entitled to move an application before the Chief Justice of the High Court with a prayer to withdraw the said case and to make it over to any other Bench for fresh arguments”, with adjudication of such application left to the Chief Justice.