STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH Vs. BHOORAJI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) Even after noticing that the trial proceeding in the case had already undergone a very protracted career, ranging over a period of 9 years to reach its finale, a Division Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh has now ordered that the whole exercise should be repeated over again and then reach a fresh conclusion. It seems learned Judges of the High Court felt helpless to do otherwise. In the prologue of the impugned judgment the Division Bench bewailed like this: "This case has sluggished for nearly 9 years and the end is not in sight as directions for a retrial seems inevitable". Was it such a helpless situation that by no means repetition of the whole hog is un-preventable

(3.) We shall now briefly sketch the background of this appeal. On 26-9-1991 an incident happened in which one Undaria was murdered and three others were wounded. The police, after investigation, charge-sheeted eleven persons in respect of the said incident for various offences including S. 302 read with S. 149, IPC and S. 3(2) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (for short the SC/ST Act'). The case started in January 1992 before the Court of the Additional Sessions Judge, Dhar (M.P.) which was the specified Court as per S. 14 of the said Act. The Court framed charges against all the eleven persons for the aforementioned offences and proceeded with the trial. In the words of the Division Bench of the High Court after a protracted trial for about five years the eleven persons were convicted under Ss. 148, 323, 302/149 of the IPC and sentenced to various punishments including imprisonment for life", as per the judgment pronounced on 23-8-1996.