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A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar recently took a suo motu (on its own) note of an order passed by a bench headed by former SC judge Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul on November 8, 2021, on the issue of adverse impact of stay orders on criminal trials.
The case, titled “In Re: Adverse effect of stay orders granted by appellate courts on the pace of trials, despite parameters for grant of such stays, laid down by this court”, came up for consideration on Monday for the first time.
The CJI said on the question of stay granted, the respective high courts could file their responses within six weeks and ordered the hearing to be held during the week commencing March 17, 2025.
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Maharashtra, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Kerala and Mizoram would have to file their responses as they withdrew the general consent to the CBI to probe cases within their territory.
The apex court, while dealing with a petition filed by the CBI in November 2021, flagged the issue of stay orders granted by the appellate courts and its adverse impact.
“The second aspect with which we find ourselves concerned is the stay orders granted by the appellate courts and thus the pace of trial getting adversely affected, despite this court having laid down parameters for grant of such stays,” the top court said in its November 8, 2021 order.
It then underlined that the aspect needed to be addressed judicially by registering an appropriate petition as a public interest petition with a notice to the states and the high courts concerned.
“We thus deem it appropriate that this aspect should be placed before the Chief Justice of India for his consideration and appropriate orders as it may not have any direct connection with the present case,” the bench headed by Justice Kaul had said.
The CBI was previously asked to apprise the top court about the steps to be taken to strengthen their prosecution unit, the bottlenecks, and about the conviction rate in matters probed by the agency.
These issues cropped up after the apex court noted that the CBI’s appeal against the high court order was filed after a delay of 542 days.
In 2019, the CBI informed the top court that appeals pertaining to the probe agency “take long time” for disposal and over 13,200 matters related to it were pending before the courts across the country, including 706 in the apex court.
The CBI then gave details of the matters pending before the sessions courts, high courts and the Supreme Court in appeals and other petitions in cases related to the central probe agency.
Findings in the 2019 affidavit showed 218 matters pending in the apex court where appeals, writ petitions and pleas challenging the orders passed by various high courts were filed by the CBI.
It said 488 such petitions filed by the accused were pending in the apex court, totalling to 706 cases.
The affidavit stated that 931 such pending petitions were filed by the CBI before different high courts, whereas the accused persons filed 11,327 such matters.
Elaborating on the pending appeals in the sessions courts in the country, the CBI said 45 such pleas were filed by the agency.
The apex court at the time noted that among the bottlenecks pointed out in the affidavit was the fact that the CBI sent over 150 requests to governments of Maharashtra, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Kerala and Mizoram between 2018 and June 2021 for grant of specific consent for investigation of cases in the territory of these states.
“This is so as these eight states have withdrawn the general consent previously granted to DSPE (CBI) under Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, 1946,” the bench stated.