In accordance with the order dated 18.12.2014 passed by the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court has constituted a Special Bench of Justice C.R. Kumaraswamy for day-to-day hearing of four criminal appeals filed by former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and other accused persons in the disproportionate assets case. A notification placed on the Karnataka High Court, in this regard, is reproduced below:
High Court of Karnataka,
Bengaluru,
Dated: 1st January 2015
NOTIFICATION NO. HCBB – 1 /2015
Pursuant to order passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India on 17.10.2014 in SLP (Crl.) No.7900/2014 with SLP (Crl.) 7906-7908/2014 (J.Jayalalithaa, etc –vs- State of Tamilnadu), Hon’ble The Chief Justice, High Court of Karnataka, is pleased to constitute a Special Bench of Hon’ble Mr. Justice C.R. Kumaraswamy for hearing of Crl.A Nos. 835/2014 to 838/2014 on day-to-day basis.
By Order of Hon’ble the Chief Justice,
Sd/-
Registrar (Judicial)
It may be pointed out that on 18.12.2014, a 3-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court [Chief Justice H.L. Dattu, Justice A.K. Sikri, and Justice R.K. Agrawal] had directed as under: “Keeping in view the peculiar facts of the case, we request the learned Chief Justice of High Court of Karnataka to constitute a Special Bench on the date of reopening of the High Court for hearing of the appeals exclusively on day-to-day basis and dispose of the same as early as possible at any rate within three months”. Moreover, vide the said order, the Supreme Court had extended the bail granted to Ms. J. Jayalalithaa by another 4 months.
It is uncommon to see such orders passed by the Supreme Court to expedite the hearing of a particular criminal appeal at the cost of lakhs of similar appeals pending before the High Courts. Of course, there was delay in the trial of the case against Jayalalithaa, in which she was convicted for the offence, under the Prevention of Corruption Act, of being in possession of assets disproportionate to her known sources of income while being a public servant.
However, there are a large number of similar cases in which trials remain pending even for much longer periods. For example, recently, the trial in the murder case of the former Railway Minister L.N. Mishra got completed in about 40 years [see: One of the oldest criminal trials in India to be decided tomorrow].
It is worth noting that in the year 2012, it was a bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice H.L. Dattu himself [present Chief Justice of India, who now headed the 3-Judge bench which has passed the aforesaid order in Jayalalithaa case], which had declined to grant the prayer of the accused Ranjan Dwivedi for quashing of the criminal case against him in view of the inordinate delay in the criminal trial in the aforesaid case of murder of former Railway Minister L.N. Mishra (at that time, the trial was pending for about 37 years) vide judgment reported as Ranjan Dwivedi v. CBI, (2012) 8 SCC 495. The Supreme Court had rejected his prayer for quashing of the case against him, holding that unintentional and unavoidable delays or administrative factors over which the prosecution has no control, such as, overcrowded court dockets, absence of the Presiding Officers, strike by the lawyers, the matter pending before the other forums, including the High Courts and the Supreme Court and adjournment of the criminal trial at the instance of the accused, etc., may be a good cause for the failure to complete the trial within a reasonable time. Therefore, in spite of the fact that right to speedy trial had been declared by the Supreme Court to be a part of the fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, even a delay of 37 years in a criminal trial was considered not enough for quashing of the criminal case.
Thus, pendency of criminal cases for long durations is not uncommon in India [see: The illusory right to speedy trial]. However, in Jayalalithaa’s case, on 18 December 2014, the Supreme Court had directed for expediting her appeal in the High Court by constituting a Special Bench, as mentioned above, which has now been done, as noted above.
