Within the first week of assuming the office of the Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kant has decided to give the Supreme Court a major procedural overhaul, complete with a new framework for oral mentioning, urgent listing, adjournment requests, and the processing of bail matters.
The reforms would be implemented through four detailed circulars, which were issued on Saturday, and would come into effect from December 1, 2025. The circulars aimed at restructuring the long-criticised mentioning regime by eliminating the need for litigants to orally seek listing before the Chief Justice of India. Oral mentioning has been restricted to exceptional categories expressly permitted by the Registry, and Senior Counsel have been barred from making oral mentions before any Bench.
The move was intended to democratise the practice by encouraging junior advocates to handle limited permissible mentionings while ensuring that the listing process was driven by objective criteria rather than discretionary courtroom interventions.
This would rationalise case-flow management, curb avoidable oral interventions before the Bench, and expedite adjudication in matters involving personal liberty—an area repeatedly emphasised by the Court in precedents such as Hussain v. Union of India (2017) and Arnab Manoranjan Goswami v. State of Maharashtra (2020), where delays in listing were held to implicate Article 21.
One of the major initiatives undertaken by CJI Kant is the automatic listing of all fresh matters concerning the liberty of individuals or the grant of urgent interim relief. Verified matters, once defects are cured, must be placed before the Apex Court within two working days.
The cases include regular bail, anticipatory bail, cancellation of bail, death-sentence matters, habeas corpus petitions, disputes involving eviction or dispossession, demolition proceedings, and any matter requiring immediate injunctive relief.
The framework reflected the observations made by the top court of the country in Satender Kumar Antil v. CBI (2022), wherein it said that access to liberty-related remedies cannot be frustrated by procedural bottlenecks.
Other fresh cases will be listed in accordance with a fixed weekly cycle: matters cleared on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday will be posted the following Monday, while those verified on Friday, Saturday, or Monday will appear the following Friday. Litigants are no longer required to seek oral mentioning even for these categories.
As per the circular, parties seeking advancement of listing must submit a Mentioning Proforma, along with a detailed urgency letter to the Mentioning Officer by 3 p.m. on the preceding working day (or 11:30 a.m. on Saturdays).
Exceptionally urgent matters, limited to anticipatory bail, death penalty cases, habeas corpus, and imminent eviction or demolition matters, may be placed before the Mentioning Officer between 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on the same day.
The Officer is required to place such requests before the Registrar (Judicial Listing) for administrative orders of the CJI. The urgency letter must disclose specific reasons why the matter cannot await its scheduled listing, consistent with the Court’s established standards for extraordinary intervention.
The circular pointed out that regular hearing matters were not eligible for mentioning. Only applications seeking urgent relief or early hearing may be processed, and only through the prescribed administrative channel.
Adjournments, long criticised for contributing to arrears, have been tightly regulated. Letters seeking adjournment for fresh or after-notice matters may be circulated only until 11 a.m. on the previous working day, and only after obtaining explicit consent from the opposing counsel.
Bereavement or medical emergencies remain the recognised grounds, apart from other genuinely compelling reasons. Adjournment requests must conform strictly to the prescribed format and be emailed to the designated Registry address. Adjournment letters will no longer be entertained for regular matters, a reform aligned with the Court’s ongoing efforts to prioritise the disposal of long-pending cases.
In the domain of bail jurisprudence, a separate circular mandates that advance copies of all bail petitions be served on the relevant Nodal Officer or Standing Counsel for the Centre, State, or Union Territory. The step was intended to prevent delays caused by unserved petitions and was consistent with the procedural discipline underscored in the Satender Kumar Antil case.
Through the reforms, the CJI intended to reduce judicial time spent on administrative interventions, ensure predictability in listing, and reinforce the primacy of Article 21 by guaranteeing swift access to remedies in matters involving liberty.
The changes also signal the Apex Court’s renewed commitment to transparency, efficiency, and structured management at a time when pendency remains a defining challenge for the Indian judiciary.
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