Smt Anima Mukherjee @Anima Chatterjee And ANR v. State Of West Bengal And ANR

CRR 702 of 2022 Court No.

Item 32 tbsr 08.03.

In the matter of:- Smt. Anima Mukherjee alias Anima Chatterjee alias Anima Mukherjee Ghosh & Anr. Mr. A. Bhattacharyya Mr. Indranuj Dutta Mr. Rahul Ghosh .....for the petitioners Mr. Debabrata Chatterjee Mr. Imran Ali Mr. Md. Kutubuddin .....for the State Although, this is an application for quashing of a proceeding, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners submits that the petitioners would not like to press the same and would instead pray for an expeditious disposal of the same.

Let a copy of this application be served upon Mr. Imran Ali and Mr. Md. Kutubuddin, learned counsels, 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 de facto complainant/opposite party no. 2 initiated the present proceeding in the year 2012. Subsequently, a charge sheet was filed against the accused under Sections 325, 406, 498A read with Section 34 of the Penal Code. The

prosecution intends to examine 7 witnesses in this case. Evidence has already started. But, only 2 out of said 7 witnesses examined till date. On 23.11.2016 this Court had passed a direction in CRR No. 3566 of 2016 upon the learned trial court to expedite the proceeding. Yet, till date the proceeding has remained pending for no fault of the present petitioners.

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

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 this case, especially considering the fact that the impugned proceeding was initiated in the year 2012. Still, the proceeding has remained pending despite a direction passed by this Court to expedite the proceeding.

On the prayer of the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners the prayer for quashing is rejected as not pressed.

However, in the interest of justice the learned trial court is requested to conclude the proceeding as expeditiously as possible without granting any unnecessary adjournment to any of the parties,

preferably within a period of 10 months from next date of hearing.

With these 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.)