Judgment

Thomas, J.—Leave granted.

2. Even after noticing that the trial proceedings in the case had already undergone a very protracted career, ranging over a period of 9 years to reach its finale, a Division Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh has now ordered that the whole exercise should be repeated over again and then reach a fresh conclusion. It seems learned Judges of the High Court felt helpless to do otherwise. In the prologue of the impugned judgment the Division Bench bewailed like this: “This case has sluggished for nearly 9 years and the end is not in sight as directions for a retrial seems inevitable”. Was it such a helpless situation that by no means repetition of the whole hog is un-preventable?

3. We shall now briefly sketch the background of this appeal. On 25.8.1991 an incident happened in which one Undaria was murdered and three others ware wounded. The police, after investigation, charge-sheeted eleven persons in respect of the said incident for various offences including Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC and Section 3(2) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities) Act (for short ‘the SC/ST Act’). The case start