Delhi High Court
Association Of Victims Of Uphaar ... vs Govt. Of Nct Of Delhi And Anr. on 31 May, 2007
Author: M Mudgal
Bench: M Mudgal, P Bhasin
JUDGMENT
Mukul Mudgal, J.
1. This is an application filed by the petitioner Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy, who have sought the expedition of the trial of Sessions Case No. 1/99 in respect of Uphaar fire tragedy. Reliance has been placed on an order dated 4th April, 2002 of the Division Bench of this Court where certain directions were given for the expeditious disposal of the trial. The following directions were given by the Division Bench of this Court on 4th April, 2002:
(i) Trial Court shall hold trial of Sessions Case No. 1/99 for 10 days in a month from May except June 2002. It shall adjust its calendar suitably in consultation with Principal District and Sessions Judge, if need be, to explore that no other matter was taken up on the fixed dates.
(ii) CBI and its concerned functionaries including its special prosecutors are directed to take steps to ensure that sufficient number of witnesses were present and available on the dates fixed for prosecution evidence and so is trial court required to complete the examination of prosecution witness in attendance on day to day basis.
(iii) No adjournment shall be granted for non-availability of defense counsel resulting in deferring of the cross examination of a prosecution witness and in that event it shall be open to trial court to take recourse to various options in terms of section 309 including closure of cross examination or cancellation of bail of accused.
(iv) Trial court shall also take expeditious steps to complete the trial as far as practicable by 15th of December, 2002. In case it was not possible for it to adhere to the prescribed time frame, it could seek extension of time on sufficient cause.
(v) Petitioner shall be at liberty to re-agitate the matter in case of any further grievance by an appropriate remedy under law.
2. It is pursuant to the liberty granted in sub-para (v) in the order dated 4th April, 2002 that this application has been filed.
3. The learned Counsel for the petitioner has urged that even though the trial was required to be completed by 15th December, 2002, well after the period of four and a half years since the deadline fixed by this Court has expired, the trial is yet to be completed and on the contrary, it is still proceeding at a "snail's pace". The application has averred that the adjournments have been sought on behalf of the accused on several occasions and have been granted by the learned Trial Judge merely on asking contrary to the mandate of this Court directing the Additional Sessions Judge not to grant adjournments on the ground of non-availability of defense counsel. Our attention has been drawn to various such orders of the trial Court which show that the defense counsel have been seeking frequent adjournments only because of their non-availability and for other similar reasons. We also feel that the directions of this Court not to adjourn cases on such grounds have not been adhered to. However, since the case has now reached the stage of final arguments and all the counsel have assured us that they would finish the arguments within the time schedule which may be fixed by this Court now, we are refraining from making any further observations regarding the non-compliance of the directions of this Court and it is hoped and indeed directed that now onwards there shall be strict compliance of the directions being given by this Court. The directions of this Court should not be disregarded lightly. In case for certain unavoidable reasons it is found not possible to adhere to the time schedule fixed by the High Court for the disposal of any case, the trial Court must communicate to the High Court the reasons therefore and seek extension of time granted by this Court. In addition to this order, we repeat and reiterate the above quoted directions given in the order dated 4th April, 2002 except for the direction directing the completion of trial by December15, 2002 which time expired about four and a half years ago.
4. The learned Counsel for the accused were present today after the notice and have indicated that they require following number of days for completing their arguments:
Counsel for - Days required
Accused No. 1 - Sushil Ansal : 10 days
Accused No. 2 - Gopal Ansal : 10 days
Accused No.10 - Anand Kumar : 2 days
Accused Nos.3 to 5 - Rajender Mohan Puri
Krishan Lal Malhotra,
Radha Krishan Sharma : 8 days
Accused No. 8 - Manmohan Uniyal : 2 days
CBI : 7 days
5. Thus approximately a total of 40 working days have been indicated by all the parties to complete their arguments. A grievance is also raised by the petitioner's counsel is that even though 10 days in a month were assigned exclusively to this case, the arguments are being heard at 2.00 p.m. only even on such 10 days.
6. We are of the view that taking into account the above facts and the directions by this Court dated 4th April, 2002 and the need for the expeditious disposal of the trial not only in public interest but also in interest of the accused, it is appropriate that the hearings in the trial shall commence not at 2:00 pm in the afternoon but at 10:00 am in the morning. Taking into account the time estimates given by the learned Counsel themselves, the trial is required to be completed on or before 31st August, 2007. We may clarify that if any counsel finishes arguments before the time indicated above the other counsel would not claim adjournment on the ground that they were not expecting that counsel to conclude arguments before the time indicated by him before this Court and are required to start arguments immediately thereafter.
7. With the above directions and observations, the application stands disposed of. We appreciate the fact that all the counsel have agreed to co-operate for the expeditious disposal of the Sessions Case No. 1/99. Since we have reiterated the directions of order dated 4th April, 2002, no adjournment shall be granted due to non-availability of counsel. The trial will also go on day to day basis commencing 2nd July, 2007. We also direct the learned District and Sessions Judge to ensure that no other fresh matters are assigned to the Additional Sessions Judge hearing the Sessions Case No. 1/99 for the months of July-August, 2007 and the other matters listed before her should be rescheduled accordingly before the learned Judge and in case of extreme urgency may be marked to other Courts by the learned District & Sessions Judge.
8. In view of the above, the application stands disposed of. Liberty to the parties to apply to this Court in case of need.
