In a bid to clear a backlog of criminal appeals pending for over a decade, the Gujarat High Court has announced that it will constitute special benches on working Saturdays from July to October. These benches will specifically hear cases where convicts have been in jail for more than 10 years.
Both Division Benches and single-judge benches will be formed for this purpose. The High Court stated that criminal appeals will be listed before these special benches regardless of their current status or scheduled hearing dates—cases will be preponed or postponed as necessary to fit Saturday hearings.
The High Court clarified that these appeals will be treated as “Targeted Matters,” and a cause list will be published one day before each working Saturday, based on the special bench schedules.
However, the 100 oldest criminal appeals will continue to be heard every Wednesday under the “Wednesday Weekly List (WWL)” dated July 2, 2025.
As part of this initiative, nine Division Benches and three single-judge benches convened on July 5 to begin hearing the pending appeals.