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Shankar Mahto v. The State of Bihar

Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 369Decided 16 Apr 2026
Crl.A. No.-001971-001971 - 2026
Justice Sanjay Karol · Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh

Background

This order arises out of Shankar Mahto's appeal against a conviction and death sentence confirmed by the Patna High Court in 2014. While hearing that appeal in 2017, the Supreme Court noticed inordinate delays were routinely affecting cases where convicts relied on free legal aid to file appeals, and appointed an amicus curiae to investigate. Even after the underlying death reference in Mahto's own case was decided separately, this miscellaneous petition continued as a standalone proceeding to fix the systemic problem: years of consultation followed with the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee (SCLSC), NALSA, and the High Courts.

Decision Breakdown

The Court reviewed a detailed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) prepared by the amicus curiae in consultation with SCLSC and NALSA, covering creation of dedicated translator cadres in High Courts, a unified digital platform for exchanging case information between legal services committees and jail authorities, monitoring committees at each level, quality-assurance audits of translations, and, most concretely, a mandatory "delay explanation" checklist that must be filed with every appeal/SLP routed through a legal services committee, recording each step's date from the order being uploaded to the SLP finally being filed. The Court directed that the SOP's filing timelines be treated as binding, asked High Courts to adopt the rest administratively, ordered the delay-explanation checklist incorporated within two weeks, and called for a compliance report from all concerned institutions, including the National Informatics Centre, by 30 April 2026.

Lesson Learnt

Beyond deciding individual appeals, the Supreme Court can and does use a single case as a vehicle to fix structural, court-wide problems: here, ensuring that convicts (especially those on death row) who depend on free legal aid are not disadvantaged by administrative delays in translation, document transmission, and filing between jails, legal services committees, and courts.

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

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