On Thursday, Kerala High Court Chief Justice AJ Desai issued a series of guidelines for judges and their staff to follow upon the retirement, transfer, or elevation of judges.
The Chief Justice has requested that judges who are retiring, being transferred, or elevated must submit their signed judgments and orders for all cases where verdicts were reserved to the court registry by their last working day, or at the latest by midnight on their retirement day.
If judgments are not completed on time, judges are to hand over the cases and documents to the registry so that they can be presented to a new bench for hearing.
These directives follow a letter from the President of the Kerala High Court Advocates Association, Yeshwanth Shenoy, to the Chief Justice. The letter alleged that recently retired Justice Mary Joseph had continued using her chambers and writing judgments after leaving office. Additionally, the Bar President claimed that High Court staff were helping the judge backdate and upload judgments.
The new guidelines stipulate that no staff member of a judge is permitted to upload any judgment or order online more than three days after the judge’s retirement. The Registrar (Computerisation)-cum-Director (IT) has been instructed to adjust the system accordingly to prevent uploads beyond this three-day window.
Judges’ staff must hand over all case records to the court registry by 4:30 pm on the third working day after the judge’s retirement.
The High Court’s notification emphasized that these guidelines aim to prevent unnecessary challenges regarding the validity of judgments and orders delivered, signed, and uploaded on the High Court website following the retirement, transfer, or elevation of judges.
