- (1.) On the facts and circumstances of the case, no notice to any person is necessary in this application.
(2.) In the main appeal, a three Judge Bench of this Court to which two of us were parties, has issued certain directions for effective enforcement of the right to speedy trial flowing from Article 21 of the Constitution of India (as recognised by a five Judge Bench of this Court in A. R. Antulay v. R. S. Nayak, 1992 CrLJ 2717. Relevant among such directions for the present purpose, are the following: Direction No. (i): In cases where the trial is for an offence punishable with imprisonment for a period not exceeding seven years, whether the accused is in jail or not, the court shall close prosecution evidence on completion of a period of two years from the date of recording the plea of the accused on the charges framed whether prosecution has examined all the witnesses or not, within the said period and the court can proceed to the next step provided by law for the trial of the case. Direction No. (iii): If the offence under trial is punishable with imprisonment for a period exceeding 7 years, whether the accused is in jail or not, the court shall close prosecution evidence on completion of three years from the date of recording the plea of the accused on the charge framed, whether the prosecution has examined all the witnesses or not within the said period and the court can proceed to the next step provided by law for the trial of the case, unless for very exceptional reasons to be recorded and in the interest of justice the court considers it necessary to grant further time to the prosecution to adduce evidence beyond the aforesaid time limit.
(3.) The present petition is filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI for short) for clarification (and also for some modification) of the above directions, by stating (1) that the said directions are only prospective and (2) that the time taken by the court on account of its inability to carry on day-to-day trial due to pressure of work will be excluded. We wish to reiterate that we have not fixed an outer time limit for conclusion of all criminal proceedings in a case. Nor did we go counter to the decisions of the Constitution Benches of this Court in A. R. Antulay v. R. S. Nayak, 1992 CrLJ 2717 and Kartar Singh v. State of Punjab, 1994 CrLJ 3139. In paragraphs 12 to 14 of our judgment we have considered the ratio in the afore-cited decisions and by keeping track with the observations therein we made the endeavour to achieve to the possible extent the noble ideal of "speedy trial" which has been held repeatedly by this Court to be an incidence of Article 21 of the Constitution.;