SC against hasty closing of criminal cases

The Supreme Court on Friday said a trial judge cannot close a criminal case by passing a one-page order sheet, and instead has to deliver judgement after dealing with the complete evidence.

A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy dismissed an appeal filed by a person from Chhattisgarh, challenging the high court order to transfer a case related to his wife’s suicide to another trial court for rehearing.

The order came after the high court noted that the presiding judge had not delivered any verdict, but passed a one-page order acquitting him.

“When a situation like the present one crops up, it causes agony, an unbearable one, to the cause of justice and hits like lightning in a cloudless sky. It hurts the justice dispensation system and no one, and we mean no one, has any right to do so,” the bench said.

Observing that the plinth of the justice dispensation system is founded on the faith, trust and confidence of the people, and nothing can be allowed to contaminate and corrode the same, the court said the accused might have felt delighted in acquittal and affected by the order of rehearing, but they should bear in mind that they are not the lone receivers of justice. “There are victims of the crime. Law serves both and justice looks at them equally. It does not tolerate that the grievance of the victim should be comatosed in this manner,” it said.

The court said the high court had correctly transferred the instant case after forcing voluntary retirement of the trial judge as it had then noted after inquiry that he (judge) had in fact delivered no judgement by recording the evidence as mandated under the Criminal Procedure Code.