Full Judgment Text
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PETITIONER:
MUKTINARAIN JHA AND ORS.
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
STATE OF BIHAR
DATE OF JUDGMENT23/01/1978
BENCH:
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
BENCH:
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]
JUDGMENT:
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
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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 delayer 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.
604