India, Nov. 28 -- Days ahead of being sworn in as the Chief Justice of India (CJI), Justice Surya Kant called for high courts to make public the time judges take to pronounce reserved verdicts and more. The trigger was a case from Jharkhand, where four life convicts - two from Scheduled Tribes and two from OBC communities - had waited two to three years after their criminal appeals were heard, with final judgments left in limbo. These observations are not the first time the top court has raised alarms over reserved judgments in Jharkhand. Expressing "shock" at rising backlogs of reserved cases, it had urged judges to use sanctioned leave to clear criminal and civil appeals and pressed for regular public reporting on matters involving death sentences and life imprisonment. Needless to say, Jharkhand does not stand alone in the dock. In Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Delhi, for example, the backlog of reserved judgments signals broader systemic dysfunction. In this context, the Supreme Court's direction that high courts must disclose adjournments, causes of delay, and time taken to upload judgments is entirely justified. After all, there appears to be no reason why performance data should be shielded from the very people who suffer its consequences. Justice Kant's remarks on transparency and timeliness point to deeper, long-standing malaises. With a little over a year's tenure, he will have more breathing time than his two predecessors. But given the task, time will bite at his heels. He will want to leave the institution better than he found it. What he inherits is daunting: Staggering vacancies, mounting pendency, threadbare infrastructure. As of 2025, one in four district judges is missing. High courts fare worse, with nearly one in three posts vacant. In Jharkhand, vacancies run at 40% in the high court and nearly 50% in district courts. The worst-affected high courts - Allahabad, Patna, Rajasthan, Odisha, Telangana - have vacancy levels exceeding 40%. In Bihar, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh, district court vacancies have crossed 50% in some years, and more than half of their pending cases have been stuck for over three years. Nationally, overall pendency has surged by nearly 20-30% in five years. By any count, judge workloads are crushing. Each high court judge must manage 7,000-10,000 cases - roughly a three-year backlog. Criminal cases alone account for 2,500-3,500 per judge. District judges could possibly handle 2,200-4,000 cases apiece, with criminal matters between 1,500 and 2,500. At current disposal rates, several high courts would need 10 to 15 years just to clear what they already have on their dockets. A parliamentary reply in December 2024 put the judge-to-population ratio at 21 per million - less than half the 50 per million recommended decades ago. The India Justice Report places the actual working strength closer to 15 per million. Meanwhile, the number of people waiting for the grinding process of investigation or trial to move forward grows. Undertrials account for more than 75% of inmates across 1,360 jails; convicted persons sometimes less than 30%. Average undertrial stays have lengthened - from around three months in 2019 to more than 10 in 2025 - with a significant share staying far longer. Despite judicial handwringing and constant monitoring, nothing suggests that the tide is turning. Filling vacancies is part of the remedy, but far from sufficient. Recruitment cycles stretch from months to years; judiciary-executive friction can stall the process entirely. Even if every judicial vacancy were filled overnight, courtrooms and staff would still fall short of hands. One missing registrar, clerk, steno or data entry operator can halt the machinery. In an effort to break the familiar tareekh-pe-tareekh (date after date) cycle, the judiciary increasingly acknowledges the need for systemic reform: Stricter timelines, better case management, stronger accountability for unwarranted delay by litigants and counsel. Reaping technology's full value will rely on the speed at which reliable infrastructure is in place and the pace of its wholehearted embrace by the legal fraternity. Interventions must be able to demonstrate unequivocally that they further fair and equal access to justice. Video-conferencing in criminal hearings has reduced administrative inconvenience, but has yet to show it can meaningfully reduce prison time or upholds fair trial norms. Together, cheque bounce and motor vehicle cases account for 10-12% of all pendency, including 43 lakh cheque bounce matters. To reduce the backlog by up to 40% within five years, pilots - summary trials, fast-track courts, contract judges, digital summons, structured complaint formats - are being deployed. But the impact remains limited by uneven rollout, untrained mediators, weak follow-through, and inconsistent judicial buy-in. Judicial speed is set by its slowest link, and there are many - not least legal counsel. A 2017 study found that nearly 80% of trial delays in Delhi stem from adjournments, absenteeism, and late filings, mostly by lawyers. Strictness in imposing costs is one way to wean them off habitual expectations of automatic adjournments. The revised procedural codes now clarify and reinforce the court's powers to limit adjournments and impose costs. But courtroom power dynamics have long nurtured judicial reluctance to enforce sanctions firmly. Judicial loads would ease if judges were better trained - and left to judge, not manage courts and their add-ons. Court managers and permanent senior functionaries, common elsewhere, remain underused in India. Earlier experiments fizzled, but the idea merits revival. The judiciary is too often decried. But respect for the bench - high or low - in a rule of law country, is non-negotiable. It rests on two pillars: Transparency and accountability. Judges, like Caesar's wife, must show themselves above reproach - not cloaked in robes and rank, but answerable in the public square. If the CJI's call is to carry weight, the Supreme Court's lead will set the national example. It has the platform - the National Judicial Data Grid - and the capacity. Publishing its own real-time data on reserved judgments and time taken to dispose of cases would be a small act with large consequences. Reform, after all, follows the leader....