Justice delayed invariably denied in criminal cases

The aphorism ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’ is familiar to almost everyone. Understandably, a delay in the conclusion of a trial causes frustration and mental agony for those seeking justice. It also dulls the feeling of securing justice in the end, if at all.

As trials are prolonged beyond reasonable limit, it becomes increasingly unlikely that they will end in conviction. Reasons abound for acquittal. Consider the 39- year-old case in which gangster Rajendra Nikhalje aka Chhota Rajan and his aides were accused of attacking a police patrol in 1983.

Three policemen were injured in the incident. Rajan absconded and the trial against him began more than three decades later. While some witnesses were untraceable and others died in the interim period, during the trial, the prosecution could not even produce the weapons seized from the crime scene as they had been misplaced.

Not surprisingly, Rajan was acquitted in the case. The procedure also requires the accused in such cases to be identified by witnesses in court. Veteran prosecutor Pradeep Gharat recalled an instance in which a witness, who was nine when she saw the accused in 1984, was called upon to identify him in court when she was 45.

The man, who had been in the prime of life when the witness had seen him, was now in his mid-50s. “Affected persons also lose seriousness as time passes and see no point in testifying sincerely,” Mr Gharat said. A case in point is the Suleman Usman Bakery firing case from the 1992-93 Bombay riots where, according to the prosecution, indiscriminate and unprovoked firing by policemen at Muslim bakery workers on the orders of Joint Commissioner of Police RD Tyagi had led to the deaths of eight people and left 12 injured.

Mr Tyagi and some others got a clean chit in the case. The trial of the remaining policemen began only in 2019, 26 years after the incident, and is still going on. Recently, the bakery owner appeared in court but was declared hostile after he said he could not recall anything.

Another witness, the son of a victim of the incident, told the court he could not identify the accused. He was a child in 1993 and is now 40. Securing witnesses in the case being a challenge,the court recently directed the Mumbai Police Commissioner to appoint a competent officer for the purpose, calling it a “serious and sensitive” case.

Such delays in the trial usually benefit the accused, unless they are already in custody. In November last year, a city magistrate’s court extended the “benefit of doubt” to a man and his friend, both now in their fifties, in a 1991 incident of assault on the man’s estranged wife and her mother. The police could not trace the doctor who had examined the victims.

The investigating officer, too, was untraceable. In another case dating back still further to 1986, a man was acquitted of the charge of killing his wife’s “illegitimate” child. The man, now 68, had been accused of murdering the month-old infant.

The court said there was insufficient evidence as witnesses were not available in the case. In November 2020, a father who lost his son in the 2008 Malegaon blast, made a plea to the court to expedite the trial. He pointed out that the trial had commenced 10 years after the incident and continues to be pending.

“Victims are awaiting justice,” the 59-year-old’s plea said. In cases where the accused are undertrial prisoners, of course, a slow trial or no trial even after spending a decade in prison is a violation of their right to a speedy trial and to justice. Recently, Nadeem Shaikh, an undertrial in a triple blast caseof 2011, requested the special court to expedite his case.

He emphasized that the matter is more than 10 years old. The trial is yet to begin. He said this slow pace is violating the rights of the victims as well as innocent accused persons.

.