New Delhi: Allahabad High Court on 26 August justified In 1988, a man was convicted of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl and mutilating her private parts.
The verdict came more than 30 years after the convict Ishrat, who had filed an appeal in court against the lower court’s decision, found her guilty of the crime. Sections 324 (voluntarily causing hurt with dangerous weapons) and 354 (assault or criminal force with intent to outrage the modesty of woman).
In November 1988, the child, who had reportedly gone to a neighbor’s house to play, was brought back with clothes covered in blood. In October 1992, Kanpur District and Sessions Court found Ishrat guilty of attempt to rape. He filed his appeal in the same year but had to wait for more than 30 years for the case to be decided.
The lower court had given him two different jail sentences- Rigorous imprisonment for three years under section 324 and two years under section 354.
The Allahabad HC last month canceled his bail bond and ordered his arrest, saying he would have to serve the rest of his sentence. In its judgment, the single-judge bench Justice Krishna Pahal observed that the offense is one of the most serious and diabolical offenses committed against a minor girl. [the] tender age of four years” and that the crime was committed with extreme sadism and lust.
Justice Pahal also cautioned the state not to appeal as a minor punishment proportionate to the offence.
“It is a very regrettable position that the state has not given priority to any appeal against leniency. The slowness of the Public Prosecutor is highly condemnable,” the court said. add That keeping in view the facts of the case, the accused in the case do not deserve any leniency.
The important thing about the verdict is that it highlights the long pending cases of the Allahabad High Court – a fact that the Supreme Court has held. Thrown light on on several occasions.
information The National Judicial Data Grid shows that 10,32,746 cases are currently pending in the Allahabad High Court. Of these, more than 4,70,000 cases are pending for criminal appeals and of these, 10.2 percent are more than 20 years old.
Justice Govind Mathur, former chief justice of the Allahabad High Court, told ThePrint that such delays were due to several factors – the most important of them being judicial vacancies.
“Of course, there are a lot of pending cases in the Allahabad High Court,” he told ThePrint. “This is due to several reasons – including lawyers seeking adjournment, lack of trial court records and vacancy of judges. Against the sanctioned strength of 160 in the court, only 95-110 judges remain on the bench at any given time. .
He said that the government should focus on filling up such vacancies to increase the settlement rates.
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pending for decades
Ishrat’s case is not alone. In May this year, a bench of Supreme Court Justices L Nageswara Rao and BR Gavai Express It was informed after alarm that criminal appeals from the 1980s are still pending in the Allahabad HC.
“That means 42 years. The trial would have taken four to five years. So the person who committed the crime in the 1970s at the age of 30-40, will now be 80-90 years old,” the current including judicial vacancies Throwing light on the various reasons for the situation, Justice Rao had said. ,
Asking Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to help suggest a solution, the bench said such judicial delay affects the right to a speedy trial guaranteed under Article 21 (right to life) of the Constitution.
“The Allahabad High Court is a court of volume,” Manish Tewari, senior advocate practicing in the court, told ThePrint. “The volume of cases coming to HC is the highest. [in the country],
He said reform efforts have so far failed to address the problem.
“Systems exist to settle matters. Hit-and-trial methods have been employed to increase the rates of settlement, which has at times been unfavourable, leading to high pendency,” Tiwari said.
Justice Mathur said that there is a regular bench for disposal of conciliation cases.
“Regular benches should be set up for disposal. We tried to do this during our tenure and it should be carried forward.
‘give bail’
Keeping in view the high number of criminal appeals pending before the Allahabad HC, the Supreme Court suggested The convicts, who are serving a sentence of more than 14 years in February 2022, should either be given bail or considered for exemption.
In that case, the court, while granting bail to 12 convicts, who were already in jail for 14 years, set broad criteria for bail.
In another case in March, the Supreme Court had called the high pendency of criminal appeals before the Allahabad HC and the Lucknow Bench a “disturbing situation”. The court was hearing an appeal against a High Court order denying bail to an accused who was already in jail. Jail for 12 years.
Despite this, data shows that the Allahabad High Court is one of four high courts – the others being Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh – that have Less backlog of cases between 2010 and 2020.
The backlog of cases in Indian courts is increasing and a large number of judicial vacanciesShows data. In September 2021, over 4.5 crore cases were pending in our courts.
There are about 9 out of 10 such cases pending at the level of subordinate courts, while one in 10 is in the High Court.
High Courts that serve a large population higher pending with a few notable exceptions. For example, Patna and Calcutta courts have less pendency than high courts. Madras, Rajasthan and Punjab, despite serving a high population.
Akshat Jain is a student of National Law University, Delhi and an intern at ThePrint.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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