Judgment

Fazal Ali, J.

( 1 ) THESE two criminal appeals are directed against a judgment dated 27/02/1979 of the Sessions Judge, Delhi by which the accused (hereinafter referred to as the appellant) have been convicted under various S. of the Penal Code and awarded sentences of various terms of imprisonment not exceeding two years (which have been ordered to run concurrently) in addition to fines.

( 2 ) BOTH the appeals were originally filed before the Delhi High court. and were admitted by it on 21/03/1979 when the sentences of the appellants were suspended and they were released on bail. On 17/05/1979, the State also filed an appeal to the Delhi High court for enhancement of the sentences. The Special courts Act (No. 22 of 1979 and hereinafter to be referred to as the act) was passed by Parliament and received the assent of the President on 16/05/1979. On 27/06/1979, the central government made a declaration under S. 5 (1) of the Act as a consequence of which the appeals stood transferred to this court.

( 3 ) THE appellants have raised a number of preliminary objections relating to the constitutional validity of the Act and various provisions thereof on several grounds including the contravention of Articles 14 and 21 of the constitution of India. Alternatively, it was argued that some of the provisionsof the Act did not at all apply to the appellants and the transfer of the appeals from the High court to this court was not legal. The State has appeared through Shri Soli J. Sorabjee who has countered all the objections raised by the appellants and has submitted that the Act is a valid piece of legislation and that there is no illegality in the transfer of the appeals from the High court to this court. In view of the nature of the preliminary objections raised by the appellants we decided to dispose them of before entering into the merits of the appeals. After hearing the parties at great length, by an Order dated 5/12/1979 we overruled all the said objections and proceeded to hear the appeals on merits. We now proceed to set out the reasons given for the order rejecting those objections

( 4 ) IN order to understand the arguments advanced by learned counsel for the parties it will be necessary to state certain undisputed facts. The Act was preceded by a Bill (introduced by a member of the Lok Sabha) which was adopted by the government but in view of certain constitutional objections the President made a reference to this court for its opinion regarding the validity of the Bill and its provisions. The matter was heard by a bench of seven Judges and in its report dated 1/12/1978, this court upheld the validity of the Bill generally by a majority of six to one. Certain clauses of the Bill, however, were held to be violative of Article 21 of the Constitution. This court further held that Parliament had legislative competence to create Special courts and to provide for appeals against judgments and orders of such courts to the Supreme court. This court also upheld the classification provided in clause (4) (1) of the Bill which conferred power on the central government to make a declaration in respect of an offence alleged to have been committed during the operation of the proclamation of emergency dated 25/06/1975 by a person who held high public or political office in India. To the extent that the clause brought within the purview of the Act persons who had. committed offences between 27/02/1975 and 25/06/1975 it was, however, held to be invalid. Similarly, the provisions of clause (7) of the Bill laying down that a retired Judge of a High court could be appointed as a Judge of the Special court and that this could be done by the central government in consultation with but without the concurrence of the Chief justice of India were held to be bad. Furthermore, the court observed that the absence of a provision for the transfer of a case from one Special court to another affected the fairness of the trial and, therefore, was violative