SC to examine effect of stay orders on pace of trials on Monday

The Supreme Court will take up on Monday a suo motu case related to the adverse effect of stay orders granted by the appellate courts on the pace of trials.

The matter titled “In Re: Adverse effect of stay orders granted by appellate courts on the pace of trials, despite parameters for grant of such stays, laid down by this court” is listed before a Bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar on December 9.

While hearing a petition filed by the CBI in November 2021, the top court had flagged the issue of stay orders issued by the appellate courts leading to delay in trials. It had noted that CBI’s appeal against the Jammu and Kashmir High Court order in a criminal case was filed after a delay of 542 days.

“The second aspect with which we find ourselves concerned is the stay orders granted by the appellate courts and thus the pace of trial getting adversely affected, despite this Court having laid down parameters for grant of such stays,” it had said in its November 8, 2021 order.

“We thus deem it appropriate that this aspect should be placed before the Chief Justice of India for his consideration and appropriate orders as it may not have any direct connection with the present case,” the top court had said.

Earlier, the top court had asked the CBI to spell out the steps needed to be taken to strengthen their prosecution unit, deal with bottlenecks and improve the conviction rate in cases probed by the agency.