It Would Be Waste Of Precious Judicial Time If Accused Is Permitted To Be Tried 44 Yrs After Crime: Karnataka HC Quashes Oldest Criminal Case In The State
Justice M. Nagaprasanna, Karnataka High Court
The Karnataka High Court has quashed the oldest criminal case in the State while holding that it would be a waste of precious judicial time if the Petitioner is permitted to be tried 44 years after the crime.
The Court allowed the Criminal Petition filed by the Petitioner under Section 482 of the CrPC to quash the pending criminal proceedings against him. The Bench had to determine whether trial against the Petitioner should be permitted at this juncture only for an eventuality that he would get acquitted and walk away or whether he should be allowed to face the “rigmarole of the procedure of criminal law” in a case where there cannot be a conviction at all.
A Single Bench of Justice M. Nagaprasanna observed, “The witnesses who deposed then i.e., 44 years back are impossible to be secured to-day and the reasons rendered by the concerned Court qua other accused who are acquitted are straight away applicable to the petitioner as his identification for driving home the presence of the petitioner in the alleged scene of crime is extremely doubtful. It would only be a waste of judicial time which is too precious today, if the petitioner is permitted to be tried 44 years after the crime. To save such precious judicial time, I deem it appropriate to obliterate the crime against the petitioner.”
Advocate K. Ravishankar represented the Petitioner, while High Court Government Pleader Rashmi Pati appeared for the Respondent State.
The complainant in this case had alleged that the accused persons, including the Petitioner, trespassed onto his property and attacked him and others. One person succumbed to injuries. The police registered an FIR under Sections 143, 147, 148, 447, 307, 326, and 302 read with Section 149 of the IPC.
Two of the accused were convicted, while the other two were acquitted. The Petitioner, listed as accused No. 3, was declared absconding. The convicted accused filed an appeal, where one accused was acquitted, while the sentence of the other was upheld.
The Petitioner argued that he had been unaware of the proceedings for decades and was neither arrested nor served summons. He submitted that the prosecution's evidence was insufficient for identification and conviction.
The High Court referred to the decision of a Coordinate Bench in Mohammed Ilias v. State Of Karnataka (2001), wherein it was pointed out that “in the second round of trial against the petitioner, the evidence to be produced cannot be different from the one that was produced by the prosecution in the earlier case. Therefore, in that view of the matter, the proceeding is quashed.”
Consequently, the Court held, “If the afore-narrated facts are noticed, the impossibility of conviction of the petitioner looms large. Therefore, if acquittal is eminent in a trial, permitting such trial against the accused would be nothing but waste of precious judicial time as is observed hereinabove. Therefore, in the considered view of this Court, permitting a trial, which would be of no utility would only be an exercise in futility. Thus, ends the oldest case, in criminal justice system, of the State, perhaps, which is 44 years old.”
Accordingly, the High Court allowed the Petition.
Cause Title: Chandra @ V.Chandrashekara Bhat. v. The State Of Karnataka & Anr. (Neutral Citation: 2024:KHC:50967)