BAREY Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) TODAY along with this appeal, there are listed for hearing four more criminal appeals of the year 1979 and 10 more Criminal Appeals of the year 1980. It is apparent that these appeals being more than 16 or 17 years old, the incident in question had taken place even earlier. All these appeals are to be disposed of by a single Judge of the High Court.

(2.) ALLAHABAD High Court Rules, inter alia, deal with the question of jurisdiction of Judges sitting alone or in Benches. The relevant portion of Rule 2 of Chapter v. reads as follows:

(3.) REALISING that these appeals have come up for hearing after 17 or 18 years, after they were filed in the High Court, this Court enquired about the total pendency of criminal cases in the High Court. The information as given by Sri S.C. Srivastava, Section Officer of the Criminal Section of this Court indicates that as on 30.4.1996 total number of criminal cases pending in the High Court was 95,935. Out of them pending single Judge crl. appeals are 24,659. The other major nature of cases pending are 25,902 applications under Section 482, Code of Criminal Procedure; 16,957 crl. revisions and 13,756 two Judges crl. appeals and 11,208 matters of contempt. The two Judges Criminal Appeals are obviously such appeals in which the sentence awarded is either the life term or death after conviction by the trial court. These appeals are to be heard by a division Bench. Similarly, Crl. Contempt cases are again the matters which are to be heard by a division Bench comprising of atleast two Hon'ble Judges.