06/03/2026
Since I am feeling hungry, tired and physically incapacitated to dictate the judgment… the judgment is reserved.
This is verbatim from a recent Allahabad High Court order.
Justice Subhash Vidyarthi recorded this extraordinarily candid note after hearing a Supreme Court-expedited matter for nearly 3 hours, from 4:15 pm to 7:10 pm, beyond regular court hours, because the six-month timeline fixed by the Supreme Court was expiring that very day.
That day, his cause list had 235 matters.
3 hours of arguments. After an already full day.
Now let me say something that most people outside courtrooms don’t realise:
Judging is exhausting in a very specific way.
It’s not just sitting and listening.
It’s constant evaluation.
Filtering arguments.
Testing precedents in your head. Anticipating appellate scrutiny.
Measuring every word you will eventually write.
And after all of that, you’re expected to dictate a reasoned order immediately.
Flawless. Structured. Appeal-proof.
We criticise courts for delay. We question why judgments take time. We demand efficiency.
But we rarely think about the cognitive load of deciding other people’s lives.
As lawyers, we argue one side.
Judges must carry both sides at once.
In a system that already struggles with backlog, it would have been easier to dictate something quickly and move on.
Reserving judgment takes patience. And perhaps courage.
If a High Court judge with 235 matters feels stretched enough to record that line, maybe the story isn’t about tiredness.
Maybe the story is about structural strain.
We talk about reform in terms of vacancies and infrastructure.
But reform also means asking: How much can we expect from individuals before the system itself becomes unfair- to them and to litigants?
The line stayed with me because it was rare.
It reminded us that justice is delivered by humans. Not machines.
And if we want better judgments, we must also allow judges to be human.
