How Unnecessary Observations In Procedural Orders Adds To Pendency

A recent Allahabad High Court order in an interfaith relationship case examined the social acceptability of live-in arrangements instead of limiting itself to legal questions. Such digressions from core legal issues can delay proceedings, adding to the strain on a justice system already burdened with heavy pendency.

In time-sensitive matters such as bail or protection petitions, expansive moral observations can divert courts from the central legal questions and produce downstream effects that prolong resolution.

The most visible flashpoint in recent weeks has been an Allahabad high court order in which the court refused protection to a Hindu-Muslim couple living together, and while refusing relief, went on to comment on live-in relationships and social norms. The court also referred to concepts from the Quran and the offence of zina while remarking on live-in relationships. This order explicitly linked the couple’s claimed live-in status to the possibility that the arrangement was being used to “evade” statutory provisions aimed at regulating religious conversions. 

This order is not an isolated episode. Over the past year, the court has been the source of several orders that, while deciding discrete criminal or protective pleas, have included sweeping observations on the social dimensions of live-in relationships and their consequences for women. Moreover, in a July 2024 bail order, the bench of Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal warned that if religious conversions during congregations were not checked, India’s majority population “would be in the minority one day".

These orders contain statements that go beyond the immediate legal facts, language that quickly becomes the lead in news reports and frames public debate. Such coverage elevates the moral aside into a public precedent, sometimes irrespective of whether it formed part of the ratio of the judgment.

Why does this matter for delay and pendency?

First, bail and protection petitions are designed to be fast. The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasised that applications affecting personal liberty require expeditious disposal because the stakes are immediate and irreversible: pre-trial custody, reputational harm and disruption of lives.

When courts treat these matters as occasions for broader social commentary, two harms follow. The direct harm is procedural: hearings take longer, reasoned orders grow in length, and peripheral observations invite interlocutory responses.

The consequential harm is institutional: expansive language provokes further litigation, which can include review petitions, appeals, or expunction applications, which consume scarce judicial bandwidth and can force re-hearings or corrective orders.

In one notable instance this March, the Supreme Court, in suo motu proceedings, stayed an Allahabad High Court judgment where the High Court had held that acts such as grabbing a minor victim’s breasts, tearing the string of her pyjama, and attempting to drag her beneath a culvert before fleeing did not constitute rape or even an attempt to rape.

There is another very recent matter, where the Allahabad High Court judge Justice Prashant Kumar declined to quash criminal proceedings in what was essentially a commercial dispute while remarking that civil disputes were being pursued through criminal channels because “civil suits take years to conclude". His order was then challenged before the Supreme Court, which not only allowed the challenge but also directed that Justice Kumar be withdrawn from criminal jurisdiction and directed him to sit with a senior judge until retirement.

When courts use such cases as platforms for wider social observations, delay follows.

There is empirical context to this argument. India’s district and taluk courts alone have well over four crore pending matters according to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG). Criminal matters form the single largest category in these numbers.

In such an environment even small inefficiencies multiply into significant delay. Time spent on non-essential moral commentary in thousands of short orders translates into lost judicial days that could otherwise be devoted to disposal on the merits.

The ripple effects from a single excessive paragraph are visible in recent interventions by the apex court. When the Supreme Court or a higher bench must step in to correct or remove paragraphs, the process diverts attention from primary issues, generates fresh hearings and adds to docket pressure.

Judges are guardians of constitutional morality but must avoid substituting personal moral views for legal reasoning. When admissions about culture, gender roles or social mores slip into orders in ways that are not necessary to decide the question before the court, they invite public reaction and politicised debate. That debate frequently migrates from news headlines into litigation, complaint petitions and public interest interventions, all of which slow down the core dispute’s adjudication.

Reform is possible and procedural rather than doctrinal. High courts can adopt tighter templates for short orders, especially in bail and protection matters, limiting content to necessary factual findings, statutory ratios, and brief reasons.

In a republic where courts are among the few institutions entrusted to protect rights against majoritarian pressures, judges inevitably confront social questions. But when moralising language becomes routine in orders that should be short and urgent, the collateral cost is measured in delayed liberty and overloaded dockets.