Muktinarain Jha & Ors Vs. State of
Bihar [1978] INSC 12 (23 January 1978)
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
SINGH, JASWANT
CITATION: 1978 AIR 770 1978 SCR (2) 602 1978
SCC (1) 497
ACT:
Practice and Procedure--Communication of
orders passed in appeal, revision reference by the High Court in Criminal Cases
should be sent without least delay--Criminal Procedure Code (Act II of 1974),
1973, Ss. 371, 388.
HEADNOTE:
The Petitioners' special leave petition was
dismissed for want of surrender certificate as required under Rule 6 of Order
XXI of the Supreme Court Rules, 1966. But in fact the petitioners did surrender
but the Assistant Sessions Judge refused to take them into jail custody for
want of receipt of judgment from the High Court.
Allowing the petition for restoration of the
special leave petition, the Court.
Observed :- It is unfortunate that when High
Courts deliver judgments confirming the conviction and sentence, there is a
long delay in communicating the fact of affirmation of the sentence to the
trial courts. A sentence should not be delayed at least after it is confirmed
by the High Court but when this happens on account of the indifference of the
administrative side of the High Court in the mechanical process of
communication to the trial court it does not speak well of the management side
of our court system. [602 H, 603 A] [The Court expressed its hope that more
business-like procedures in such matters would be evolved so that the rule of
law would not suffer a new shock on account of messy- management of judicial
business-rectifiable by a little more promptitude and attention]
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Criminal
Appeal No. 169 of 1968.
Application for restoration of Special Leave
Petition.
Parmod Swarup for the petitioner.
The Order of the Court was delivered by
KRISHNA IYER, J. The special leave petition had been dismissed on an earlier
occasion on the score that the petitioners had not surrendered to judicial
custody which is more or less a condition precedent to seeking the leave of
this Court to file an appeal. However, the petitioners point out, in the
present petition for restoration of S.L.P., that although they had offered
their person and surrendered before the, Assistant Sessions Judge, Madhipure,
requesting that they be remanded to jail custody, the court declined to take
them into custody for want of receipt of judgment from the High Court. Prima
facie, this appears to be true in view of annexure A which is a copy of the
application put into that court. It is unfortunate that when High Courts
deliver judgments confirming the conviction and sentence, there is a long delay
in communicating the fact of affirmation of the sentence to the trial courts.
603 A sentence should not be delayed at least
after it is confirmed by the High Court but when this happens on account of the
indifference of the administrative side of the High Court in the mechanical
process of communication to the trial court it speaks badly of the management
side of our court system. We wish that more business-like procedures in such
matters were evolved so that the rule of law need not suffer a new shock on
account of messy-management of judicial business rectifiable by a little more
promptitude and attention.
These observations have relevance to the
present case because, long after the judgment of the High Court and the
sentences offering to surrender, the court's sentence has not started to
operate and the S.L.P. in this Court has had to be dismissed-things which
should not have and could not have happened if the High Court's administrative
side had been less indifferent.
The petition is allowed and the S.L.P. will
be posted three weeks later. Time to surrender ten days. Meanwhile
communication of this order, with some administrative celerity, will be made
both to the High Court and to the trial court. (The practice direction is to be
reported).
S.R. Petition allowed.
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