Patna HC asks Bihar govt to conduct survey on pending criminal cases in lower courts

The orders were issued by division bench of Chief Justice KV Chandran while hearing a PIL by Kaushik Ranjan.

Patna: The Patna High Court has given two weeks time to the Nitish Kumar led Bihar government to conduct a survey on the criminal cases pending in the lower courts across the state. While hearing the PIL by one Kaushik Ranjan, the division bench of Chief Justice KV Chandran has given two weeks' time to the state government to conduct a survey in this regard.

In an earlier hearing too, the court had directed the Secretary of Bihar State Legal Services Authority (BALSA) to cross-check the available data of National Judicial Grid and National Crime Records Bureau with the original records. Petitioner Kaushik Ranjan's advocate Shama Sinha had then told the court that a large number of criminal cases are pending in various courts of the state.

He had told the court that there are about 67,000 cases in which the parties are not showing any interest. The Court had directed the Bihar State Legal Services Authority and various District Legal Services Authorities to identify such cases and take action. Advocate Shama Sinha had further told the court that around seven lakh criminal cases are pending due to lack of assistance from lawyers.

The court was also told that efforts are being made by the Bihar Federation of Women Lawyers to train lawyers to provide legal aid to such undertrial prisoners. The process of providing them the necessary information and training for legal aid to such prisoners is likely to be started soon. The court said that providing assistance to lawyers in these cases should be taken seriously.

Advocate Shama Sinha had told the court that many cases are very old, most of which have become “contextless”. In the earlier hearing, petitioner's lawyer Shama Sinha had told the court that these data were obtained from National Judicial Grid and National Crime Records Bureau. The said data was also presented before the court.

The PIL has been filed to enforce the law of plea bargaining under the Criminal Procedure Act. The plea said that a criminal case dating back to 1965 is pending in a court in Bihar, which is clearly visible in the National Judicial Data Grid. The next hearing on this matter will be held after two weeks.