Madras high court chief justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul has ordered that every judgment must mention on its first page, the dates on which it was reserved and pronounced, in a bid to increase transparency of and reduce the delay in pronouncing judgments, reported The Hindu.

Kaul relied on the 13-year-old Supreme Court order in Anil Rai vs State of Bihar, in which justices KT Thomas and RP Sethi said that “if the judgment, for any reason, is not pronounced within six months, any of the parties shall be entitled to moving an application before the Chief Justice with a prayer to withdraw the case and make it over to any other Bench for fresh arguments. It is open to the Chief Justice to grant the prayer or pass any other order as he deems fit”.

Kaul has directed the the high court’s registry to create a new column in judgment templates to contain those dates, and to send him a list of all judgments reserved but not pronounced.