Babla Adhikari@Babla Adhikary And ORS v. State Of West Bengal And ANR

C.R.R. 248 of 2022 Court No.

Item 18 Ssi In the matter of:- Babla Adhikari @ Babla Adhikary & ors. 04.02.

(via video conference) Mr. Sukdeb Sarkar ...for the petitioners Mr. Arijit Ganguly Mr. M.F.A.Begg ...for the State This is application seeking an expeditious disposal of a proceeding in which a charge-sheet was submitted under Sections 363 and 366A of the Indian Penal Code against the petitioner no.1 and Section 363 read with Section 109 against the others.

Let a copy of this application be served upon Mr. Arijit Ganguly and Mr. M.F.A. Begg, learned advocates, who are present in Court today and who ordinarily appear on behalf of the State. Their engagement may be regularised in due course by the competent authority of the State.

Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners submits as follows. The petitioners are the accused in this case. Although the First Information Report was lodged on 12.08.2014 and the charge-sheet was submitted on 31.10.2014, till date the proceeding could not be concluded. The prosecution proposes to examine five witnesses in this case. The charges were framed on 22.09.2016. Yet, till date not a single witness could be examined. The proceeding has remained pending for no fault of the present petitioners. Although

the petitioners are on bail, the proceeding being pending since 2014 has put the petitioners in severe mental agony.

Learned counsel for the State submits that the State would not come in the way if a direction is passed to expedite the proceeding.

I have heard the submissions of the learned counsels appearing on behalf of the petitioners and the State and have perused the revision petition. Although the petitioners are on bail, it is also a fact that the matter is pending since 2014. It is quite surprising that in a case where charges were framed in 2016, till date not a single witness could be examined. In view of the above and in the interest of justice, I request the learned trial Court to conclude the proceeding as expeditiously as possible without granting any unnecessary adjournment to any of the parties, preferably within a period of one year from the next date of hearing.

With these observations, the revisional application is disposed of.

Urgent photostat certified copies of this order may be delivered to the learned Advocates for the parties, if applied for, upon compliance of all formalities. (Jay Sengupta, J.)