RAJ KUMAR JAIN Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN case First Information Report No. 308 dated 9th June, 1979 of Police Station, Ambala Cantt, petitioner Raj Kumar Jain is being prosecuted in the court of learned Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Ambala under sections 8 and 14 of the Dangerous Drugs Act, sections 18 and 27 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and section 420 of the Indian Penal Code because 4960 tablets recovered from him from inside a polythene envelope carried by him at Bus Stand, Ambala Cantt, on 9th June, 1979, were found on analysis to be the duplicate of Mandrex of white colour having mark MX thereon and another 990 tablets carried by him in separate polythene bag were found on analysis to be the duplicates of Aplax of brown colour. Challan against the accused petitioner was presented in the trial court on 8th January, 1980. Recording of paltry evidence of four witnesses against him having not been completed till 6th October, 1988, the petitioner filed Criminal Misc. No. 7246-M of 1988 in this Court for quashing the First Information Report and resultant proceedings before the learned trial court on the grounds of inordinate delay of 8 years and 9 months in trial resulting in rendering the prosecution much too stale,prejudicing his right of effectively cross-examining the prosecuting witnesses and defeating the guarantee of speedy trial envisaged in Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) I have heard Shri H.S. Mann, Advocate, for the petitioner, Shri Madan Jassal, Advocate for the respondent and have carefully gone through the material on record.

(3.) OBSERVATIONS made in Hira Lal v. State of Haryana, AIR 1971 SC 356 pertain to appreciation of interested and police witnesses evidence and have no bearing on the point in issue. Similarly in State of Andhra Pradesh v. P.V. Pavithram, 1990(3) Recent Criminal Reports 350 : AIR 1990 SC 1266 the apex Court was concerned with delay during investigation and not the inordinate delay in trial involved in this case. Their lordships of the Supreme Court observed, "It follows from the above observations that no general and wide proposition of law can be formulated that wherever there is any inordinate delay on the part of the investigating agency in completing the investigation, such delay is a ground to quash the FIR".