IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Cr.Misc. No.51969 of 2008 1. PARSHURAM YADAV 2. Baliram Yadav … … Petitioners Versus THE STATE OF BIHAR … … Opp. Party For the petitioners: Shri Arun Kumar For the State: Shri Dashrath Mehta, APP ----------- 3. 19.12.2008 Heard. The petitioners approached the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Bagaha, in the light of direction issued to them by order dated 22.8.2008 passed in Cr. Misc. No. 32053 of 2008. This Court had shown its interest in knowing as to how many more months the court required in concluding the trial and also as to what developments were made in the trial after 16.2.2006 because the petitioners were in custody for last about more than five years. The learned Judge has indicated in his order dated 26.9.2008 that all the public witnesses had been examined and the I.O. was left to be examined against whom summons had been issued and forwarded to the Director General of Police, Jharkhand, and the conclusion of the trial may require four more months. The petitioners are worried. Their 2 anxiety is on the earlier order of the learned Judge dated 16.2.2006, when while refusing the prayer for bail of the petitioners, he was requiring only two months from 16.2.2006 to conclude the trial. The petitioners now are worried due to extending timeframe by the court after having exhausted two months which it had given to itself and thus a total period of timeframe now fixed by the court for conclusion of the trial appears six months, according to the petitioners. I am not really worried about the time but I am, rather, surprised that the court below itself is changing its stand in fixing its timeframe in conclusion of the trial of an accused in which the accused petitioners are in custody for more than five years and are likely to complete six years. We generally live in a world where Judges assume many things merely by reading the F.I.R. We also find very often that custody of an accused is not an anxiety for the trial Judge. We could imagine a situation in which we could step into the shoes of an accused in custody so as to calculate trauma 3 which a man and his dependent family members could be experiencing. This could probably be the reason for recognizing the principle of a man assumed to be innocent as a human right so that the court could expedite the hearing and deliver judgment quickly. If a man is found guilty appropriate sentence must be inflicted upon him, but if a man is allowed to suffer imprisonment without being held guilty, I could not find any proper provision in law so as to compensating the trauma of a man in the circumstances which he and his family members have suffered. The person is a Judge primarily because he is a sensitive person. Besides, he is person sensitized to our social realities. He is assumed to be properly oriented to different conditions prevailing in our society and as such he has to take firm and quick steps so as to delivering justice. If Judges who man the courts at any level, do not appear alive to expedition with which any petition or a case is to be disposed of then we could not justify holding the office. I may simply want to remind the learned Judge who is trying 4 Sessions Trial No. 238 of 2003 that an observation has its weight and meaning and once it is observed it could not be easily departed from if it is really recorded in an order. The petitioners predicament is that they have remained in custody for many months from 16.2.2006 and they have yet to remain in custody for another month as per the timeframe fixed by the learned Judge and they do not know whether the learned Judge could be having an elastic timeframe so as to extending the same further as and when he requires and wishes to do it. I could direct that the timeframe of four months from 26.9.2008 cold never be extended by the learned Additional Judge and even if the evidence of the I.O. is not recorded on account of not being produced, the evidence has to be shut down and judgment delivered by the next month. The petition is dismissed with the above direction. Kanth ( Dharnidhar Jha.J.)