Prafulla Chakraborty And Another v. Narcotics Control Bureau

Sr. 81 11-12-2020 s. d.

ct, no.42 CRR 1735 of 2020 In Re : Prafulla Chakraborty and anr. ...... petitioners. In the matter of : An application under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Mr. Arnab Chatterjee .....for the petitioners.

Mr. Y. Z. Dastoor. ASG Mr. Phitoze Edulji ....for the N.C.B Learned advocate appearing for the petitioners submits that the petitioners are in custody since June 23, 2016 and although charge has been framed on September 11, 2019 but till date only one witness out of six witnesses have been examined.

Learned advocate for the petitioners further submits that the witnesses so relied upon by the prosecution in the complain all belong to the Narcotic Control Bureau. Mr. Edulji, learned advocate appearing for the Narcotic Control Bureau submits that there are three accused persons and there is a scope for the 3rd accused

obstructing in the smooth progress of the trial in view of the fact that such accused is on bail.

Having considered the submissions advanced by both the parties, I am of the opinion that the learned trial court should take all steps for expediting the progress of the case.

Accordingly, the learned trial court is directed to fix schedule of three days once in a month till the trial is taken to its logical conclusion.

No unnecessary adjournment should be granted to either of the parties and if any impediment is created in the smooth progress of the trial, the learned trial court would be at liberty to resort to harsher process of law, be it an accused or the witness for the prosecution. For the present, no time schedule is fixed.

However, the learned trial court should take all endeavours so that within a reasonable period of time a final verdict may be pronounced by the trial court.

With the above observations, CRR 1735 of 2020 is disposed of.

Urgent Photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties upon compliance of all formalities.

( Tirthankar Ghosh, J. )