SC plans fora to hear criminal cases within ‘reasonable time’

NEWDELHI: As high courts are currently unable to dispose criminal appeals quickly, forcing convicts to remain incarcerated for years, the Supreme Court is attempting to explore means of having an alternative forum to hear such cases within a reasonable time period.

A bench of justices AK Goel and UU Lalit has asked government law officers attorney general KK Venugopal and additional solicitor general Pinky Anand to address the court on the question of “what can be remedies to ensure hearing of criminal appeals within reasonable time.”

It appointed senior advocate Dhruv Mehta to assist the court in this matter.

The bench also adverted to the April meeting of SC’s Arrears Committee — an administrative committee Justice Goel heads to deal with mounting pendency in courts — where an alternative mechanism by way of creating courts of appeals was discussed. In the hierarchy, such courts will be above district judges but below HCs. The committee minutes reflect the low disposal rate in HCs. As many as 16.29 lakh cases in HCs are more than five years old and 7.43 lakh cases are older than 10 years.

The bench initiated the proceedings on its own after coming across a case from Jharkhand where the state high court politely turned down the top court’s request to hear a murder appeal “expeditiously.”

The convict in the case is facing life imprisonment and had approached SC for bail on account of delay in hearing of his appeal.

He has been in jail for more than 10 years.

But the HC said it was “unable to hear appeals of the convicts where they are in custody for more than 13-and-a-half years due to paucity of bench” and also because “much older appeals were pending where the convicts have undergone as many years.”