The Indian judiciary today is facing a moment of reckoning. Pendency is at an all-time high. In August 2025, approximately 88,000 cases were pending before the Supreme Court alone and 4.6 crore cases were pending before all district courts.
Challenges to the judiciary’s legitimacy through corruption charges levelled at sitting High Court judges, public dissent among the Supreme Court Collegium, tribunal members making claims of interference and political mudslinging, are rampant.
In this regard, Justice Surya Kant’s observation last week on the need for a specific “performance evaluation” mechanism for judges is crucial. District judges are already evaluated on the basis of Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs); however, there is no similar mechanism in place for High Court and Supreme Court judges. Collegium resolutions recommending judges to be appointed or elevated to the higher judiciary, although uploaded publicly on the Supreme Court website, are often silent about the actual metrics used to judge performance prior to granting ‘rewards’ in the form of elevation. A holistic, transparent performance evaluation framework is the need of the hour.
At the district level, judges are evaluated through self-reporting ACR forms, which are then reviewed by the Principal District Judge of a district court and the respective High Court judges exercising administrative authority over the district. Presently, there are no uniform guidelines for the data sought to be collected through the ACR forms; each High Court has varying processes. For example, ACR guidelines were introduced in 2015 in Chhattisgarh and in 2023 in Karnataka.
The Supreme Court has noted that the overarching considerations of ensuring probity and transparency in judicial performance must underlie any evaluation being undertaken. However, judicial officers have, in the past, flagged concerns arising from ACR discrepancies across states. In 2022, the then-Chief Justice of India NV Ramana set up a committee to streamline ACRs and recommend uniform factors to be considered for evaluating performance. The committee’s report was submitted in July 2023; however, its recommendations have not yet been uniformly adopted.
The ACRs capture both quantitative data regarding case disposal and pendency statistics, and qualitative analyses of a few randomly-selected judgments in some cases. This appears to be similar to the practice internally followed by the collegiums. In May 2025, the Supreme Court Collegium headed by then-Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna took a big step towards transparency by publishing the internal guidelines considered by the collegiums when recommending appointments/elevations. The metrics highlighted again capture data regarding the number of case disposals/judgments written, with vague references to qualitative analyses of certain judgments in some cases.
The criteria for qualitative assessments of judgments, which includes reasoning towards the conclusion, command over language and the knowledge of law and facts, echoes similar guidelines outlined by the Supreme Court’s National Court Management Systems (NCMS) Committee reports on Human Resource Management, first published in 2012 and updated in 2024. Justice Dipankar Datta, heading the 2012 NCMS Committee, had noted that such subjective assessments would not be able to paint a full picture of the case’s history, given that judges may view certain facts or submissions by parties differently.
At the collegium level, another factor to be considered is the opinion of a judge’s peers, particularly to assess their “general reputation”, “potential to put in hard work and commitment to work” etc. Such criteria are once again vague, and the resulting lacunae has been thrown into sharp relief by Justice Nagarathna’s recent dissent to the Collegium’s decision to elevate Justice Vipul Pancholi to the Supreme Court.
Justice Kant noted in his recent call for instituting performance review that evaluations ought to put in place specific parameters to account for the extreme workload being faced by judges, highlight the difference in the nature of cases (civil, criminal or otherwise) being handled by them and allow reasonable opportunity for judges to explain why they may be unable to deliver speedy results in some circumstances.
A potential solution in this regard would be to recognise that judges perform many duties which must be accounted for in evaluating their performance, in addition to bare quantitative statistics or subjective qualitative analysis. Standardised, uniform guidelines for evaluating the judicial work done by judges, allowing room for identifying factors which may sometimes be outside the court’s control while handling a case (such as delays in serving summons; lack of coordination among government departments etc) would be beneficial in eliminating discrepancies and uncertainties.
Additionally, performance evaluation must also consider the nature of administrative tasks being performed by judges, which often encroaches upon their judicial time. Soft skills - including courtroom management, communication and decisiveness - are also crucial in helping judges manage their workload and would provide guidance to assess character and conduct.
This requires adopting a more inclusive and holistic methodology towards evaluation. Self-assessment must be formally extended to High Court and Supreme Court judges. Peer reviews and platforms for continuing feedback and discussion among judges would help the judiciary to identify and improve its own performance while maintaining its independence and integrity.
As Justice Kant rightly noted, the “legitimate expectation of the public at large” is the fact that the judiciary is responsive, introspective, and willing to adapt to maintain public trust. In this regard, public perception surveys carried out by courts to identify the requirements and suggestions of other stakeholders - particularly litigants, lawyers and staff - would be beneficial. The American Bar Association, for example, provides certain guidelines for factors to be considered from the public during such perception surveys, including “impartiality”, “clear and logical communication in court”, and “judicial temperament”. Such public surveys are, of course, prone to misuse and would have to be used sparingly. Nonetheless, it is crucial that a more transparent, holistic performance evaluation system is put in place for the Indian judiciary to be able to retain public trust.
Priyamvadha Shivaji is a Senior Resident Fellow at Justice, Access and Lowering Delays in India (JALDI) Initiative, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Bengaluru.