New Delhi, Mar 10: The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Jammu and Kashmir administration over the “extremely disturbing” pendency of 351 sessions trials, directing it to prepare a concrete action plan for their speedy disposal while asserting that an accused cannot be made to wait indefinitely behind bars.
An official told Kashmir Convener that a bench comprising Justices J. B. Pardiwala and K. V. Viswanathan underscored that the right to a speedy trial is a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. The court asked the Union Territory government to explain why trial courts have failed to record witness testimonies in a majority of these cases.
He said the bench observed that, “We are disturbed to note that a large number of trials have not concluded despite accused persons remaining in custody for long. An accused cannot remain in jail for years without the trial being completed.”
The court was hearing a petition in which an accused was granted bail after his murder trial remained inconclusive for over seven years, with only a few prosecution witnesses examined.
According to an affidavit filed by Chandraker Bharti, Principal Secretary (Home) of the UT of J&K, who appeared via video conferencing, a total of 351 sessions cases involving 585 accused individuals are pending for more than five years.
Of these, 235 cases are stuck at the stage of recording oral evidence from prosecution witnesses, while a smaller number are awaiting charge framing, final arguments, or judgment.
The court questioned whether the failure of prosecuting agencies to produce witnesses was responsible for the logjam, observing that repeated adjournments due to witnesses not being produced cannot justify prolonged delays.
“The prosecuting agencies are responsible for ensuring that witnesses appear for examination. Failure to do so cannot be a ground to keep trials pending indefinitely,” the bench said.
Directing the administration to file a fresh affidavit, the court sought specific details, including the number of witnesses in each pending case, how many have been examined so far, and when the last testimony was recorded.
The bench said the exercise was aimed at identifying the causes behind the delays and ensuring that undertrial prisoners are not kept in custody unnecessarily while waiting for their cases to conclude. The officer further added that the next hearing is scheduled to review compliance.
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