Supreme Court to High Courts: Prioritize sensitive matters like murder, dowry death, rape

The Supreme Court has requested the Chief Justices of all the High Courts to ensure that the petitions wherein interim orders are passed holding up the trials should be immediately taken up for hearing, more particularly in sensitive and serious matters like murder, dowry death, rape etc.

"If criminal trials in such serious offences remain pending for years together on the strength of interim orders passed by the High Courts, it would lead to nothing but mockery of justice. Justice has to be done with all the parties. Justice cannot be done only with the accused persons. Justice has to be done even with the victim and the family members of the victim. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," a bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and KV Vishwanathan has said.

Court made these observations while hearing a case before it that had been pending for the past 23 years. This litigation is an eye-opener for all the High Courts across the country, the bench observed.

The case before Court was one of Dowry Death. The deceased namely Deepa had got married to Vijay Kumar on 21-11-2000. The Petitioners before Supreme Court were also the elder brother-in-law of the deceased, the younger brother-in-law of the deceased, the father-in-law of the deceased, the mother-in-law of the deceased, the sister in-law of the deceased and the uncle-in-law of the deceased. On 31-12-2001 Deepa died at her matrimonial home in mysterious circumstances. Thus, within one year of the marriage, Deepa died at her matrimonial home.

 On 10-1-2002, the First Information Report came to be registered at Nazirabad City Police Station, District Ajmer for the offence punishable under Sections 498A and 304B of the Indian Penal Code. 

The FIR was lodged by Girish Goyal, brother of the deceased alleging that her sister was being harassed by the petitioners for demand of dowry and was killed by them by administering poison.

In January, 2003, the petitioners-accused had preferred Criminal Revision Petition No.38/2003 under Section 401 read with Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 seeking to challenge the order passed by the Trial Court dated 15-11-2002 framing charge. The High Court by Order dated 14-2-2003 stayed the further proceedings of the trial.

Supreme Court noted that unfortunate events started when: "The Criminal Revision Petition filed by the petitioners in the year 2003 came to be taken up for hearing by the learned Single Judge of the High Court on 24-8-2023, i.e., after about 20 years. On 1-3-2024, the matter was released for re-hearing and was ordered to be listed before the regular bench. On 10-7-2024, the matter was once again heard and ultimately by Order dated 1-8-2025, the High Court rejected the Criminal Revision Petition".

 The Supreme Court said that it would not hesitate in dismissing the petition at the threshold as no error not to speak of any error of law could be said to have been committed by the High Court in passing the impugned order. "However, the matter should not set at rest over here. There are many questions begging for answers. We would like to know first and the foremost why it took 23 years for the High Court to take up the Criminal Revision Petition filed by the petitioners for hearing, more particularly when the subject matter of challenge in the Criminal Revision Petition was an order framing charge in a very sensitive and serious trial like one of dowry death. We would like to examine the entire record of the proceedings. We are saying so because we are perturbed by the fact that despite an interim relief operating, why the matter was not taken up for hearing at the earliest."

The Supreme Court has accordingly directed the Registrar General of the High Court of Rajasthan to forward the entire record with all the order sheets by a Special Messenger to this Court at the earliest.

"We would also like to know from the Registrar General of the High Court as to how many Criminal Revision Petitions came to be heard and disposed of between 2001 and 2026. We want the High Court to provide us with a break up of how many criminal revision petitions were filed in the year 2001 and how many came to be disposed of. We want this break up right up to the year 2026. We would also like to know how many times the Criminal Revision Petition filed by the petitioners – herein in the High Court was notified for hearing from the date of its filing till the date it came to be dismissed. We would also like to know from the State as to what steps it took as the prosecuting agency to get the Criminal Revision Petition filed by the petitioners heard at the earliest. Why during this interregnum period of 23 years, the State of Rajasthan kept quiet and did not take any steps to get the Criminal Revision Petition heard and decided on merits..", the order adds.

The matter will now be taken up on January 15, 2026.

Case Title: VIJAY KUMAR & ORS. vs. THE STATE OF RAJASTHAN

Bench: Justices Pardiwala and Vishwanathan