Speedy Trial Is Part of Article 21 but Has No Fixed Time Limit: Constitution Bench Guidelines

For the petitioners. The first petitioner argued that the right flows from Article 21 and needs an outer limit to be meaningful, as the Court had fixed for children and the Patna Full Bench had done: delay beyond seven years should be unreasonable and no proceeding should exceed ten years; the complainant had slept over the case and pursued it out of political animosity (para 18). For the second petitioner it was argued that the prosecution alone caused the delay, kept him in illegal custody and suppressed an earlier version of the investigation (para 23).

For the State of Bihar. The right is not the express American right but a component of fairness, applied by balancing; no outer limit can be laid down; delay caused by the accused, the courts or legitimate prosecution steps must be ignored; an accused who never demanded a speedy trial cannot complain; and actual prejudice must be proved (para 21).

For the respondents. The Attorney General asked the Court not to lay down guidelines, the Code and Section 482 being enough, and blamed the accused for the delay (para 24); the complainant and the State of Maharashtra accepted the right but opposed a time limit (paras 19-20).

Speedy trial and Article 21

The right is not enumerated, unlike the Sixth Amendment, and was not claimed while Gopalan held the field; once Maneka Gandhi extended the fair-procedure principle to Article 21, Hussainara Khatoon recognised speedy trial as implicit in it (paras 26-28). A law that does not provide for a reasonably prompt investigation, trial and conclusion is not fair, just and reasonable: the accused has the right and the State the obligation (para 49). The right covers investigation, inquiry, trial, appeal, revision and retrial, and its concerns are short pre-conviction detention, minimal worry and expense, and no impairment of the defence (para 54). The Code reflects it (paras 40, 50).

No outer time limit

Following Champalal Punjaji Shah and Raghubir Singh, and the American decision in Barker v. Wingo that the Privy Council approved in Bell, the Court treated the question as one of fairness, decided by weighing the conduct of both sides and the prejudice to the accused (paras 32, 36, 43, 45). Speedy trial is relative: the nature of the offence, the number of accused and witnesses, the work-load of the court and other circumstances vary, so it is neither advisable nor feasible to prescribe an outer time limit, and the right does not become illusory without one (para 51). No other High Court had taken the Patna Full Bench view (para 51). Delay caused by the accused, or by the system itself, is not unjustifiable, and proceedings taken in good faith are not delaying tactics; the court balances all the factors, and the prosecution must justify and explain the delay (paras 51, 54).

The demand rule

An accused does not prosecute himself; the State or complainant must proceed with reasonable promptitude. Since most accused come from the poorer and weaker sections, the demand rule is wholly inadvisable: a demand may count in the accused's favour, but its absence cannot be put against him (paras 52, 54).

Consequence of infringement

Ordinarily the charges or conviction are quashed, but that is not the only course: where the nature of the offence makes quashing contrary to justice, the court may order the trial to be concluded within a fixed time or reduce the sentence (paras 53-54). Not every delay prejudices the accused, though inordinately long delay may be taken as presumptive proof of prejudice (para 54). A plea of delay should go first to the High Court, which should not ordinarily stay the proceedings and must decide it on a priority basis (para 54).

The two writ petitions

In the first case, the accused's own objections had caused much of the delay until 1988, the legal position after the 1988 ruling admitted of two opinions, the charges were serious, and he had never been incarcerated or shown prejudice; quashing was refused and a day-to-day trial directed (para 55). In the second, the prosecution was not responsible for delay after the 1979 transfer to Delhi, and most of the trial was over; quashing was refused and the High Court requested to decide the pending revision within two months (para 56).