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9. The issue of long pendency of criminal appeals for final hearing arising out of capital charges as a factor for considering suspension of sentence and release of the appellants on bail, on that ground, had come up for consideration in the case of Anurag Baitha (supra) before a Full Bench of this Court in a situation where till close of the year 1983, murder appeals, preferred in the year 1972, and well beyond a decade were pending disposal for the fact that the Court had remained crippled by the absence of full nearly one-third of its sanctioned strength. The anxiety of the Full Bench had been candidly expressed in paragraph no. 4 in the case of Anurag Baitha (supra), which reads as follows:-

16. It has been noticed by the Single Bench, in the case of Ubed (supra), that criminal appeals (DB) of the year 2010, where the appellants are in custody, are being heard; whereas, criminal appeals (DB) are pending final hearing from 1993. There may be exceptions where few appeals of subsequent years might have been taken up for final hearing and might have been disposed of on urgent mentioning or for any other reason. This is, by and large, the scenario of long pendency of criminal appeals in Patna High Court. Apparently, thus, an appellant, in custody, has, as on date, to wait for five years or more after filing of the criminal appeal, to get his appeal heard. Many of them might have spent some period in custody in course of investigation or trial, prior to conviction and presentation of appeal.

17. In the background of long pendency of criminal appeals, in this Court, in our view, what has been held in the case of Ubed (supra) can be followed and applied for the purpose of consideration of suspension of sentence of appellant during the pendency of the criminal appeals (D.B) including appeal against conviction of an appellant of capital charge.

18. The case of Ubed (supra) deals with the cases where the sentence is for a period of time. For life convicts, we do not find any reason why should we forget the view expressed in the Full Bench decision, in the case of Anurag Baitha (supra). Taking a cue from the said Full Bench decision, in the case of Anurag Baitha (supra), we are of the view that even in such cases, normally, concession of bail should be extended if claim of convicts of the hearing of the appeal cannot be acceded to and their appeals cannot be adjudicated upon within a reasonable time. The heinous crimes, shocking to the very conscious of the society and the Court, like offences under the provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic substances Act, 1985, the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, offences under Sections 376, 376-C, 376-D and 364- A of the Indian Penal Code etc. are certain exception to the general run of the mill cases. It is not possible to make an exhaustive categorization of cases, which can be described as heinous capital crimes, which is shocking to the conscious of the society, peculiarly horrendous crimes and so on nor such classification is desirable. It will depend on the facts and circumstances of a particular case where the Court can refuse the concession of bail despite delay in the disposal of the appeal.