SC stresses on practice to immediately call soft copies of HC, trial court records in criminal appeals

New Delhi : To mitigate delays in judicial determination, the Supreme Court has stressed for a practice of immediately calling for the soft copies of the record of High Court and Trial Court as soon as leave is granted in an appeal filed against conviction or acquittal in a criminal matter.

“In our opinion, whenever leave is granted in an appeal challenging the order(s) of conviction or order(s) of acquittal, there has to be a practice of immediately calling for the soft copies of the record of the High Court and the Trial Court; to upload the same on the system; and to provide soft copies thereof to the learned counsel representing the parties,” said a Bench of Justice Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhhuyan in a recently passed order.

The Bench said that hearing in a large number of appeals gets delayed because record is not called for unless there is an order of the apex court to that effect.

“It will be appropriate if the Registrar (Judicial) seeks appropriate administrative directions from Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India so that the Registry will call for the soft copies of the record of the High Court and the Trial Court immediately after leave is granted,” further said the Bench.

Last week, the apex court was hearing a criminal appeal challenging the order of conviction but was forced to adjourn the case as all the depositions were not on record.

Ordering the Registry to immediately call for records, it posted the criminal appeal for hearing on April 3. The Supreme Court had granted leave in the matter in August 2023.