Last week, the Supreme Court convicted an accused in a murder case pending from the year 2004 only to realize that the lifer had already been released from jail in 2019. A bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Vikram Nath sentenced life imprisonment to Suresh Yadav who had killed his lover in 2004. The Court was informed that Yadav had already served 15 years 9 months and 27 days in prison and was released by the Chhattisgarh government.
The case dates back to the year 2004 when Yadav had murdered his lover on learning about her involvement with some other person. He had stabbed her 12 times with a sharp blade and laid open her lungs and liver. According to the reports, Yadav was convicted by the trial court in 2006 under section 302 of IPC. The court had also sentenced him to life imprisonment under sections 25 and 27 of the Arms Act. Later the HC happened to uphold his conviction and the punishment after it re-examined the evidence on Yadav’s appeal in 2010.
He then moved to the Supreme Court in 2012 who admitted to having listed the appeal in August 2013. After that, the case was listed for hearing thrice but was adjourned every time due to reasonable circumstances. According to the reports, the Supreme Court forgot about the case for the next eight years.
As the apex court, last week decided to uphold the conviction and the punishment aligned by the trial court and the High Court, it was informed that Yadav had already served almost 16 years in prison and was released by the Chhattisgarh government who exercised the power of remission under section 432 of CPC.
According to the Code of Criminal Procedure, when any person is sentenced to punishment for an offence, the appropriate Government may, at any time, without conditions or upon any conditions, suspend the execution of his sentence or remit the whole or any part of the punishment to which he has been sentenced. However, the Supreme Court in its verdict affirmed that ‘dismissal of appeal shall not be of any adverse effect on such exercise of the power of remission by the Chhattisgarh government.
It is pertinent to note that there are about 73,000 cases pending before the Supreme Court and about 44 million in all the courts of India as of last year. A report by NITI Aayog in 2018, stated that cases that had been in the courts for more than 30 years were numbered at 65,695 in December 2018. By January this year, the number has risen to 1,05,560, accounting for 60% raise.
The Supreme Court has 193 working days in a year and has five vacations in its annual calendar. A summer break of 45 days, winter break of 15 days, Holi vacation of one week, five days break each for Dussehra and Diwali which accounts for a total of 193 working days. According to the reports, considering the rate of disposal of cases in Indian Courts, it would take more than 324 years to clear the entire backlog.
