Must ensure time-bound trial, if denying bail despite delay: Punjab and Haryana HC to courts
Justice Sumeet Goel asserted that refusal of bail in such circumstances was required to be accompanied by a clear judicial mandate for speedy trial so that prolonged proceedings did not result in injustice
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that the courts must ensure expeditious conclusion of trial – preferably within a fixed timeframe – when declining bail despite lapse of time. Justice Sumeet Goel asserted that refusal of bail in such circumstances was required to be accompanied by a clear judicial mandate for speedy trial so that prolonged proceedings did not result in injustice.
“In cases where, notwithstanding the lapse of time, the court in its judicious wisdom finds that other factors preclude grant of bail, a proactive approach to prevent travesty of justice must be adopted. In such cases, the refusal to grant on bail must be coupled with a peremptory mandate of expeditious conclusion of trial, or in appropriate cases a time-bound conclusion of trial,” Justice Goel asserted.
Placing the issue of trial delay in the larger constitutional framework, Justice Goel observed timely adjudication was essential for sustaining public confidence in the justice delivery system. “A justice delivery system rests on a simple promise; fairness delivered in reasonable time. Any procedural protraction does not merely delay the verdict; it actively erodes the edifice of public confidence in the judiciary.”
Justice Goel cautioned that the consequences went beyond mere delay when trials dragged on endlessly. “It transcends the aphorism that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ and enters the more perilous territory of ‘justice doubted’,” the court asserted.
Referring to the constitutional guarantee of speedy trial, the Bench said it was not confined only to the accused. “In the constitutional scheme of Article 21, the Right to a Speedy trial is not a unilateral concession to the accused, but a collective entitlement shared by the victim and the State,” Justice Goel asserted.
Referring to the impact of prolonged trials on victims, Justice Goel asserted chronic protraction of criminal proceedings served as a systemic blight inflicting a highly deleterious impact upon the collective conscience of the society. For the aggrieved, an interminable trial was not merely a procedural delay but a form of secondary victimisation.
At the same time, Justice Goel ruled that speedy trial could not automatically translate into bail. The Constitutional promise was not an absolute or unregulated license and the courts were required to ensure the deprivation of liberty was neither “arbitrary, unconscionable nor unfair.”
Justice Goel asserted the courts were required to adopt a balanced “golden mean approach” where the “rights of the accused/incarcerated person were protected without reducing the criminal justice system to a state of toothlessness”.
Justice Goel added delay could not be examined in isolation. “Unless the delay is so inordinate that it shocks the judicial conscience, it cannot be treated as a solitary determinant for enlargement.”
