Sonu Sardar vs The Union Of India & Anr on 28 June, 2017
2. We may note that after this Court had issued notice in the present writ
petition on 02.03.2015, the State of Chhattisgarh had preferred a
transfer petition [Transfer Petition (Crl.) 297/2016] before the
Supreme Court of India and at the same time, moved an application
bearing Crl.M.A. 3651/2015 before this Court for the dismissal of the
petition on the ground that this Court lacked territorial jurisdiction to
entertain the present petition. By a detailed judgment dated
06.12.2016, this bench had dismissed the application of the State of
Chhattisgarh/respondent no.2, which has been reported as Sonu
Sardar v. Union of India and Anr., 235 (2016) DLT 530. We are
informed that the State of Chhattisgarh filed a petition for special
leave to appeal [SLP (Crl.) 131/2017] before the Supreme Court. On
12.01.2017, while hearing the transfer petition, the Supreme Court
requested this Court to decide the writ petition on its own merits. In
view of the order, the SLP has also been disposed of on 13.01.2017.
Thereafter, none of the parties approached this Court seeking an early
hearing in the matter; but waited till 16.02.2017, i.e. the date fixed.
Since then the matter was heard on a daily basis on 16.02.2017,
20.02.2017, 21.02.2017, 27.02.2017, 28.02.2017, 01.03.2017,
02.03.2017, 06.03.2017 and finally reserved on 09.03.2017.