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Ram Saran Pal @ Lallu v. State of U.P.

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 717 of 2017)Decided 21 Apr 2017
Criminal Appeal No. 717 of 2017
Justice J. Chelameswar · Justice S. Abdul Nazeer

Background

The appellant, Ram Saran Pal alias Lallu, was an undertrial facing charges under Sections 147, 148, 149, 302, 404 and 341 IPC and had already spent more than six years in custody without his trial concluding. He had earlier sought bail from the High Court, which refused it but directed the trial court to finish the trial within six months: a direction that was not complied with. His co-accused in the same case had meanwhile been released on bail.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the appellant could not be kept in continued incarceration indefinitely while the trial remained unfinished, especially since the High Court's own timeline for completing the trial had not been honoured and similarly situated co-accused were already out on bail. Leave was granted and the Court ordered the appellant's release on bail on execution of a bond with two solvent sureties to the satisfaction of the trial judge, leaving the trial judge free to impose any conditions needed to secure his attendance at trial dates. The appeal was disposed of on these terms.

Lesson Learnt

Prolonged pre-trial detention without the trial progressing, especially when a court-ordered timeline for completing the trial is ignored, is itself a ground for bail: undertrials are not meant to serve what amounts to a sentence before conviction.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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