New Delhi: A week after the Supreme Court of India took cognisance of the Jharkhand High Court’s undue delay in pronouncing judgments in four murder appeals after reserving them, the HC Monday delivered decisions in two cases, acquitting the accused in both.
A bench comprising Justices Rongon Mukhopadhyay and Rajesh Kumar acquitted two individuals facing life imprisonment in a murder case registered in 2011. Although the two had filed separate appeals, the bench adjudicated them through a common order since they arose from the same trial court verdict.
In a second case, the same bench acquitted three individuals who had been convicted and sentenced to life in June 2012 in connection with a murder registered in January 2009.
The Jharkhand HC had reserved judgments in all four cases in 2022. However, three years later, when the verdicts remained pending, the convicts approached the Supreme Court.
The High Court judgments—spanning 10 and 15 pages respectively—were delivered following strong remarks by the Supreme Court against the High Court. On 23 April, a bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Kotiswar Singh heard a plea filed by four murder convicts who moved the apex court requesting the early disposal of their criminal appeals, which the High Court had reserved over 3 years ago.
Justices Kant and Singh directed the Registrar General of the Jharkhand High Court to submit a status report in a sealed cover by 5 May, providing bench-wise details of criminal appeals where judgments had been reserved two months prior or earlier.
Monday, when the bench took up the petition of the four convicts, the High Court placed a sealed cover report providing details of cases awaiting decisions. According to the list in the report, a division bench had reserved its judgment in 56 criminal cases, while a single-judge bench had 11 cases pending.
Upon noticing a media report detailing how the Jharkhand High Court had delivered judgments in 75 cases over the past week, the Supreme Court bench asked the Registrar General to furnish a list of these matters, including the date of decision and a soft copy of the judgments.
Meanwhile, Monday at 4 pm, the Jharkhand High Court pronounced its verdicts in the two cases. One had been reserved on 27 May 2022, while the other was awaiting decision since 5 May 2022.
Advocate Fauzia Shakil, who argued the petition in the Supreme Court on behalf of the incarcerated convicts, told ThePrint that the undue and unexplained delay by the High Court in deciding the criminal appeals had forced her clients to remain in prison through no fault of their own.
“By the time the High Court heard their appeals and reserved them for judgment, they had already spent more than a decade in jail. Due to the delay in pronouncement, they have now spent close to 14 years. Any life sentence convict is eligible for remission once 14 years of imprisonment are completed. However, in these cases, remission was not an option since their appeals were pending in the High Court,” explained Shakil, expressing her concern over the High Court keeping the files undecided.
In both cases, the Jharkhand High Court cast doubt on the prosecution’s version, as its theory was unsupported by its witnesses. The bench found contradictions in the witnesses’ statements that prevented the prosecution from successfully demonstrating the accused’s involvement in the respective cases.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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