NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has voiced serious concern over the 'extraordinary delay' by the Allahabad High Court in deciding a 40-year-old criminal appeal filed by a man convicted of murder, terming this delay as "very disturbing" and initiated measures to ease pendency in the court.
"If a man has to wait 40 years for his appeal to be heard, it defeats the very purpose of filing an appeal,” said, a two-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice S Chandurkar.
The bench made these observations against the Allahabad HC, after hearing an appeal filed by the convict, Vijay Singh, seeking immediate direction to the HC for taking up his plea pending since four decades.
Singh, was arrested in November 1983 when he was 28 years old for allegedly shooting his brother.
Singh was convicted by the trial court in 1984 under Section 302 (Murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sentenced to life imprisonment. He preferred an appeal before the Allahabad High Court the same year, but unfortunately this was pending since then and no significant hearing was conducted so far.
Surprisingly, Singh, now 68, served nearly 17 years in prison before the High Court granted him bail in 2000. The appeal has not been heard on merits yet by the HC.
While passing certain directions, the apex court kept Singh’s SLP (Special Leave Petition (SLP) pending and directed the High Court to list his criminal appeal for final hearing within three months.
The Court, however, made clear it was not faulting any individual judge but stressed that systemic reform was needed.
It had also called the delay as disturbing and asked what “innovative measures” could be taken to ease the heavy pendency burdening the Allahabad High Court’s justice delivery system. "Such delays amount to denial of justice and violate the right to speedy trial under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution," the bench said and sought a report from the Registrar General of the Allahabad HC on all criminal appeals pending for more than 30 years, with case numbers and reasons for delay.
The top court also asked the HC to suggest “innovative measures” to tackle the backlog, including special benches for old criminal appeals, day-to-day hearings, and priority for cases involving elderly or jailed convicts.
Taking a further one step ahead, the SC called for data on total pendency. As per the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), Allahabad HC has over 10.3 lakh pending cases, including 3.1 lakh criminal appeals — the highest in the country.
