NEKI RAM Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD , FIR No. 49 dated 14-1-1979 was registered against the accused petitioner Neki Ram under section 409 of the Indian Penal Code in Police Station, Hissar, on the allegations that in his capacity as public servant as an employee of the Government Livestock Farm, Hissar, he had committed criminal breach of trust in respect of a sum of Rs. 66,334. 11 paise in the course of year 1978. Similarly, another FIR bearing No. 243 was also registered against the accused-petitioner aforesaid in Police Station, Hissar. on 23-3-1979 under sections 467, 468, 471, 379 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code. Criminal Case No. 1-2 of 1984 was filed in respect of the FIR No. 49 of 14-1-1979 in the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Hissar, on 2-1-1984 and Criminal Case No. 22442 of 1981 was filed against the accused petitioner in the same Court on 17.1.1981. Alleging that for the offences allegedly committed in the year 1978 for which cases were got registered with police in the year 1979, accused petitioner is still facing prosecution and that also without any substantial progress being made therein as yet in the year 1988, the petitioner has filed the two criminal miscellaneous petitions aforesaid separately for quashing the F.I.R.s and the resultant criminal action being taken thereon by the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Hissar, on the grounds that the inordinately delayed criminal action against him for the last 9 years is violative of the guarantee of speedy trial envisaged in Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) FACTUAL position set out in the two criminal miscellaneous petitions aforesaid is not in dispute. While admitting Criminal Misc. No. 5553-M of 1988 on 23.8.1988 my learned brother A.L. Bahri, J., had also ordered it to be heard along with Criminal Misc. No. 5555-M of 1988. Since both these criminal miscellaneous petitions raise. an identical question of law for determination, these are being decided together. by a common order.

(3.) THE right to a speedy trial is not a theoretical or abstract right but one rooted in hard reality in the need to have charges promptly exposed. If the case for the prosecution calls on the accused to meet charges rather than rest on the infirmities of the prosecution's case, as is the defendant's right, the time to meet them is when the case is fresh. Stale claims have never been favoured by the law, and far less so in criminal cases. Although a great many accused persons seek to put off the confrontation as long as possible, the right to a prompt inquiry into criminal charges is fundamental and the duty of the charging authority is to provide a prompt trial. Adverting to the limit of the period for which criminal litigation is allowed to go on at the trial stage, their lordships of the Full Bench of the Patna High Court, deciding the case aforesaid, observed :-