Lucknow: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has said that the criminal justice delivery system cannot be identified with the phrase ‘tarikh pe tarikh’ (adjournment after adjournment), while hearing a nearly 25-year-old kidnapping case in which the alleged victim and the accused later married and are now parents of three children.Making strong remarks on the functioning of the trial court in Bahraich, the bench said that keeping a criminal case pending for more than two decades is contrary to the constitutional guarantee of a speedy and fair trial under Article 21 of the Constitution. The court also granted anticipatory bail to the two accused.The observations were made by Justice Rajeev Bharti while allowing the anticipatory bail application of Ajay Kumar alias Chingi and Ram Chandra in connection with the kidnapping case registered at Payagpur police station in Bahraich in 2001.During the hearing, the court was informed that the alleged victim had voluntarily accompanied Ajay Kumar. The two subsequently got married and are now living happily as husband and wife. They have three children. The state was unable to effectively dispute these facts.In the order, the HC observed that there had been no meaningful progress in the trial for years, reducing the criminal proceedings to a mere formality. It stressed that justice cannot be kept pending indefinitely. The court directed both the accused to surrender before the trial court within two weeks and ordered that they be released on anticipatory bail subject to specified conditions.It further clarified that the observations made in the bail order would not influence the trial court while deciding the case on its merits.
