Supreme Court hints at 'performance evaluation' of high court judges

The Supreme Court on Monday lamented that some high court judges being unable to "deliver on their tasks" as it called for their "performance evaluation".

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh said though it did not want to act like a "school principal" for the high court judges there ought to be a self-management system to ensure "files don't pile up on their desks".

"There are judges who work day and night and are giving outstanding disposal of cases. But at the same time, there are some judges who unfortunately are unable to deliver — whatever may be the reasons, good or bad, we don't know and maybe there are some circumstances," the bench said.

The bench added, "Suppose a judge is hearing a criminal appeal, then we don't expect him to decide 50 cases in a day and deciding one criminal appeal in a day is itself a very big achievement. But in a bail matter, if a judge says I will decide only one bail matter in a day, that is something which requires introspection."

The top court, as a result, stressed on "performance evaluation" but underlined the question of parameters and guidelines guiding the process.

"Our intention is not to act as a school principal and there should be broad guidelines so that judges should know what is the task before them and on how much task they must deliver. There is a legitimate expectation of the public at large from the judiciary," the bench added.

The observations came on criminal appeals, where some life and death row convicts have knocked at the door alleging that the Jharkhand High Court has not delivered verdicts on their criminal appeals despite reserving verdicts for years.

However, the high court later delivered the verdicts in their case and acquitted many of the convicts.

Justice Kant pointed out that some judges have the habit of adjourning cases unnecessarily and said it could be dangerous for the image of the judges as has been the case with some of them in the past.