Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Aasu vs State Of Rajasthan on 9 January, 2017
Bench: Adarsh Kumar Goel, Uday Umesh Lalit
1
ITEM NO.23 COURT NO.11 SECTION II
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.)......CRLMP No(s).
49/2017
(Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 27/04/2016
in DBCRM No. 489/2013 27/04/2016 in DBCRM No. 88/2016 passed by the
High Court Of Rajasthan At Jodhpur)
AASU Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
STATE OF RAJASTHAN Respondent(s)
(With appln. (s) for c/delay in filing SLP and c/delay in refiling
SLP)
Date : 09/01/2017 This petition was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ADARSH KUMAR GOEL
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE UDAY UMESH LALIT
For Petitioner(s) Mr. Mohd. Irshad Hanif,Adv.
Mr. Mohd. Adeel Siddiqui,Adv.
Mr. Bipin Kumar Jha,Adv.
For Respondent(s)
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner. Delay condoned.
Issue notice returnable on 24th January, 2017. Liberty is granted to serve the standing counsel.
The grievance of the petitioner is that he is Signature Not Verified in custody for about eight years. The issue of bail Digitally signed by MADHU BALA Date: 2017.01.10 17:28:05 IST Reason: regarding the persons who have been in custody for a long period pending consideration of appeal in the High Court or pending trial has to be considered in the light of 2 principle of speedy trial and fair procedure under Article 21 of the Constitution. Right to have proceedings in a trial and appeal disposed of expeditiously, when a person is in custody, is well settled. In actual practice this Court is faced with cases arising out of denial of bail when persons are in custody for a long period. We are prima facie of the view that cases where persons have been in custody for long period such as more than five years ought to heard at the earliest and if the appeal is not heard even where the person is in custody upto 10 years (in life sentence cases), normal rule should be to grant bail unless there are exceptions. Similarly in the case of trial in Sessions Cases, normal rule for concluding trial should be within two years and if a person is in custody for more than two years and trial is not concluded, such cases may be put on fast track and in cases where person is in custody upto five years pending trial, normal rule should be to grant bail subject to exceptions. In magistrial trial, normal rule for concluding trial where persons are in custody should be maximum six months, beyond which the case should be put on fast track and beyond a period of one year in such cases bail should normally be granted subject to exceptions.
This Court has earlier passed certain orders on this aspect including SCLAC v UOI (1994) 6 SCC 731 and Imtiaz Ahmad v. State of U.P. (2012) 2 SCC 688. It appears necessary to reiterate the earlier orders with such 3 modifications as may be necessary.
We consider it necessary to issue notice to the Attorney General in the matter who may depute a Law Officer to assist the Court.
We also request Mr. Sidharth Luthra, Senior Advocate to assist the Court as amicus. The Registry may furnish a set of papers to him for the purpose.
List on 24.01.2017.
(Madhu Bala) (Veena Khera) Court Master Court Master