Supreme Court urges High Courts to take up immediately 'sensitive, serious' matters where trial held up

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has urged the Chief Justices of all the High Courts to ensure that the petitions wherein interim orders are passed holding up the trials should be immediately taken up for hearing, more particularly in sensitive and serious matters like murder, dowry death, rape etc.

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and K V Vishwanathan issued the request, after finding it ''very disturbing and very painful'' that the Rajasthan High Court took 23 years to reject a plea by a man and his family members against framing of charges in a dowry death case after staying the criminal proceedings in 2003.

Dismissing the plea filed by Vijay Kumar, husband of the deceased woman and others against the HC's order, the bench said, ''If criminal trials in such serious offences remain pending for years together on the strength of interim orders passed by the High Courts, it would lead to nothing but mockery of justice.''

In its order on January 8, 2026, the court emphasised, justice has to be done with all the parties, and justice cannot be done only with the accused persons.

"Justice has to be done even with the victim and the family members of the victim. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,'' the bench said.

The court requested the Chief Justices of all the High Courts to ensure that the cases, where trials have been held, should be immediately taken up for hearing, more particularly in sensitive and serious matters like murder, dowry death, rape etc.

''This litigation is an eye-opener for all the High Courts across the country,'' the bench said.

In the case, the court posed a number of queries to the Rajasthan High Court.

"We would like to know first and the foremost why it took 23 years for the High Court to take up the criminal revision petition filed by the petitioners for hearing, more particularly when the subject matter of challenge was an order framing charge in a very sensitive and serious trial like one of dowry death,'' the bench said.

The court said, it would like to examine the entire record of the proceedings.

"We are saying so because we are perturbed by the fact that despite an interim relief operating, why the matter was not taken up for hearing at the earliest,'' the bench said.

The court directed the Registrar General of the High Court to forward the entire record with all the order sheets by a special messenger to this court at the earliest.

"We would also like to know from the Registrar General of the High Court as to how many criminal revision petitions came to be heard and disposed of between 2001 and 2026. We want the High Court to provide us with a break up of how many criminal revision petitions were filed in the year 2001 and how many came to be disposed of. We want this break up right up to the year 2026,'' the bench said.

The court also asked how many times the criminal revision petition filed by the petitioners – herein in the High Court was notified for hearing from the date of its filing till the date it came to be dismissed.

It also asked the State government to explain as to what steps it took as the prosecuting agency to get the criminal revision petition filed by the petitioners heard at the earliest.

"Why during this interregnum period of 23 years, the State of Rajasthan kept quiet and did not take any steps to get the criminal revision petition heard and decided on merits,'' the bench asked.

The court fixed the matter for further consideration on January 15, 2026.