Surajit Sarkar@Suraj@Raja v. State Of West Bengal

NB 24.02.2022 CRR 554 of 2022 Ct. No. 39 In the matter of:- Surajit Sarkar @ Suraj @ Raja ...petitioner Mr. Soujanya Bandyopadhyay.

...for the petitioner.

Mr. Saswata Gopal Mukherjee. Ld. PP, Mr. Imran Ali, Ms. Debjani Sahu.

....for the State.

This is an application seeking an expeditious disposal of a proceeding in which a charge sheet was submitted under Section 20(b)(ii) (c) of the NDPS Act.

Let a copy of this application be served upon Mr. Imran Ali and Ms. Debjani Sahu, learned Counsels who ordinarily appear on behalf of the State. Let them represent the State. Their engagement may be regularised by the competent authority of the State in due course. Learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners submits as follows. The petitioners are the accused in this case. They are in custody since 20.12.2016, the date on which the FIR was registered. A charge sheet was submitted citing eleven witnesses. Several dates were fixed for framing of charge. On 06.12.2017, charge was framed. However, till date, only a single witness has been examined in this case. The matter has remained pending for no fault on the part of the present petitioner. Learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the State submits that the State would not come in the way if a direction is passed to expedite the proceeding.

This is an unfortunate case where the petitioner has been suffering a custody trial since December, 2016. Even though charges were framed in 2017, till date only one witness could be examined out of a total of

eleven witnesses.

I have heard the submissions of the learned counsels appearing on behalf of the petitioners and the State and have perused the revision petition.

It appears that an inordinate delay has been occasioned in concluding the trial, especially considering the fact that the petitioner is languishing in custody since 20.12.2016.

In view of the above and in the interest of justice, the learned Court is requested to conclude the trial as expeditiously as possible without granting any unnecessary adjournment to any of the parties by fixing dates for hearing in terms of Section 309 of the Code, preferably within a period of six months from the next date of hearing.

With the above observations, the revisional application is disposed of.

Urgent photostat certified copy of this order may be supplied to the parties expeditiously, if applied for.

(Jay Sengupta, J.)