NEW DELHI: In a scathing rebuke of the criminal justice administration in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir, the Supreme Court on Tuesday (February 3) expressed "extreme disturbance" over the state of a murder trial that has remained stagnant for over seven years.
A Bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice KV Viswanathan observed that the prosecution’s failure to conclude evidence recording was not just a procedural lapse but a "mockery of Article 21" and the fundamental right to a speedy trial.
"You have made a mockery of Article 21. You have made a mockery of this concept of speedy trial... What is this man doing in jail for the past seven years?" Justice Pardiwala remarked during the hearing.
Taking a grim view of the "sorry state of affairs," the Court has summoned the Home Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir to appear virtually on the next date of hearing. Furthermore, the Court has directed the Secretary to provide a comprehensive list of all undertrials in the UT who have been languishing in jail for five years or more.
Background:
The case, Anoop Singh V/s UT of J&K, dates back to an incident on October 4, 2018. Following the incident, the petitioner, Anoop Singh, was arrested and charge-sheeted under Section 302 of the Ranbir Penal Code (the penal code applicable in J&K at the time).
While the Sessions Court in Samba framed charges as early as February 23, 2019, the trial has seen almost no meaningful progress in the seven years since. Earlier, the Supreme Court had sought a detailed report from the trial court to understand the causes of the delay. Upon reviewing this report "threadbare," the Bench found the findings to be "deeply disappointing."
The report revealed a staggering statistic: in seven years, the prosecution managed to examine only 7 witnesses. Despite this slow pace, the prosecution informed the court that it still intends to examine 17 more witnesses.
The Bench was particularly shocked by the fact that over the past 82 hearings, not a single witness was examined by the prosecution.
"The report highlights the sorry state of affairs at the end of the prosecuting agency. We are at pains to note that in the last 7 years, the prosecution has been able to examine only 7 witnesses... most unfortunate part is that past 82 hearings, not a single witness has been examined," the Bench observed in its order.
When the counsel for the UT attempted to justify the delay by citing the COVID-19 pandemic and a de-novo (fresh) investigation ordered by the High Court in 2022 on a plea by the victim's widow, the Court remained unimpressed.
Justice Pardiwala questioned whether the administration was suggesting that trials across the country had come to a standstill during the pandemic. The Bench noted that even after the fresh investigation was completed in 2022, there had been no significant progress in the following two years.
The hearing took an even more serious turn when the counsel for the petitioner, Advocate Ranjeet Kumar, submitted that this was not a solitary instance of judicial delay. He informed the Bench that there are hundreds of undertrial prisoners in Jammu and Kashmir who have been in custody for more than 10 years without their trials reaching a conclusion.