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6. Last, but not least in our appreciation of the law, Section 482 of the CrPC stands in solitary splendour. It preserves the inherent power of the High Court. It enunciates that nothing in the CrPC shall be deemed to limit or affect the inherent powers of the High Court to make such orders as may be necessary, firstly, to ‘give effect to any order under the CrPC’, words which are not to be found in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (hereafter referred to as ‘CPC’). Ergo, the High Court can, while exercising inherent powers in its criminal jurisdiction, take all necessary steps for enforcing compliance of its orders. For salutary reason Section 482 makes the criminal Court much more effective and all pervasive than the civil Court insofar as ensuring obedience of its orders is concerned. Secondly, Section 482 clarifies that the CrPC does not circumscribe the actions available to the High Court to prevent abuse of its process, from the inception of proceedings till their culmination. Judicial process includes compelling a respondent to appear before it. When the Court encounters a recalcitrant Appellant/convict who shows negligible interest in prosecuting his appeal, none of the Sections in Chapter XXIX of the CrPC dealing with appeals, precludes or dissuades it from dismissing the appeals. It seems to us that passing such orders would eventually make it clear to all that intentional and repeated failure to prosecute the appeal would inexorably lead not merely to incarceration but more importantly to the confirmation of the conviction and sentence consequent on the dismissal of the appeal. Thirdly, none of the provisions of the CrPC can possibly limit the power of the High Court to otherwise secure the ends of justice. While it is not possible to define the concept of ‘justice’, suffice it to say that it encompasses not just the rights of the convict, but also of victims of crime as well as of the law abiding section of society who look towards the Courts as vital instruments for preservation of peace and the curtailment or containment of crime by punishing those who transgress the law. If convicts can circumvent the consequence of their conviction, peace, tranquility and harmony in society will be reduced to a chimera. Section 482 emblazons the difference between preventing the abuse of the jural process on the one hand and securing of the ends of justice on the other. It appears to us that Section 482 of the CrPC has not been given due importance in combating the rampant malpractice of filing appeals only for scotching sentences imposed by criminal Courts.

11. The discussion would not be complete without noticing the Orders in Parasuram Patel v. State of Orissa, (1994) 4 SCC 664 and Madan Lal Kapoor v. Rajiv Thapar, (2007) 7 SCC 623. In neither of these cases had the Appellate Court taken steps available to it to ensure the attendance of the Appellant. Instead, it appears that the concerned High Court had adopted the obviously less tedious approach of dismissing the appeals only because neither the Appellant nor his counsel were present when the case was called on for hearing. The Court did not ruminate upon the curial malpractice which has now become endemic, viz. the filing of appeals by convicts with the obvious intent to frustrate and circumvent sentences passed by criminal Courts. We cannot close our eyes to the reality that less than twenty per cent of prosecutions are successful; the rest are futile largely because of inept, shoddy or substandard investigation and prosecution. Even in cases where the prosecution succeeds in proving the guilt of the accused, punishment is emasculated by convicts not because of their succeeding in having their conviction overturned and reversed by the Appellate Court, but by going underground and disappearing from society after receiving reprieve from incarceration from the Appellate Court. We are convinced that the interests of society at large are being repeatedly sacrificed for the exaggerated, if not misplaced concern for what is fashionably termed as ‘human rights’ of convicts. Recent judgments of the Court contain a perceptible dilution of legal principles such as the right of silence of the accused. The Supreme Court has, in several cases, departed from this rule in enunciating, inter alia, that the accused are duty bound to give a valid explanation of facts within their specific and personal knowledge in order to dispel doubts on their complicity. Even half a century ago this would have been a jural anathema. Given the woeful success rate of the prosecution, if even the relatively niggard number of convicts are permitted to circumvent their sentences, crime is certain to envelop society. Law is dynamic and not immutable or static. It constantly adapts itself to critically changing compulsions of society. (See State of Punjab v. Devans Modern Breweries Ltd. (2004) 11 SCC 26). The criminal justice delivery system is being held to ransom by convicts who have developed the devious and dishonest practice of escaping punishment or sentence by filing appeals, obtaining bail or suspension of sentence and thereafter disappearing beyond the reach of the arms of the law. The inherent powers under Section 482 of the CrPC, which the Supreme Court has on several occasions expounded to have existed from time immemorial, predating the present as well as the previous CrPC, must be pressed into action lest the already fragile policing and prosecuting branches of governance are rendered redundant. Since Section 482 of the CrPC was not considered by either of the Three Judge Benches of this Court, we have not found it necessary to resort to recommending the matter for being laid before a Larger Bench. The facts and pronouncement in Bani Singh cannot be extrapolated to the factual matrix before us. On the contrary the opinion in Ram Naresh Yadav as well as in Kishan Singh are available to us to ensure that preventive action is devised to combat the abuse of Court process so that facilitative steps are taken to secure the ends of justice.

15. The enunciation of the inherent powers of the High Court in exercise of its criminal jurisdiction already articulated by this Court on several occasions motivates us to press Section 482 into operation. We reiterate that there is an alarming and sinister increase in instances where convicts have filed appeals apparently with a view to circumvent and escape undergoing the sentences awarded against them. The routine is to file an appeal, apply and get enlarged on bail or get exempted from surrender, and thereafter wilfully to become untraceable or unresponsive. It is the bounden duty cast upon the Judge not merely to ensure that an innocent person is not punished but equally not to become a mute spectator to the spectacle of convict circumventing his conviction. (See Stirland v. Director of Public Prosecutions, 1944 AC 315 quoted with approval by Arijit Pasayat, J. in State of Punjab v. Karnail Singh (2003) 11 SCC 271). If the Court is derelict in doing its duty, the social fabric will be rent asunder and anarchy will rule everywhere. It is, therefore, imperative to put an end to such practice by the expeditious disposal of appeals. The inherent powers of the High Court, poignantly preserved in Section 482 of the CrPC, can also be pressed into service but with care, caution and circumspection.