I may submit that the object of criminal justice is three-fold : it is punitive, preventive, and reformative. I submit that so far as the right of appeal is concerned there is a view-point that this right of appeal also constitutes the right to delay justice. It is a sort of thing which is very much like the right of “filibustering” enjoyed by the Parliamentarians. I may point out that while this right of appeal may not detract ultimately from the punitive aspect of justice but it may, in a certain measure, detract from its preventive and reformative purposes. It is therefore only meet and proper that this aspect of the case must not be lost sight of by us. We know that the system of administration of justice that we have inherited was foisted on the country by the British, and although much can be said in favour or against it, it cannot be denied that it suffers essentially from three fundamental defects, namely, it is very expensive, it involves a lot of delay and at the same time it gives scope for perjury and fabrication of evidence. So the basic question, and the fundamental issue that is before us is not merely giving the right of appeal to a person convicted and sentenced to death here or there before the Supreme Court, but that at some stage-whether the stage has come now or will come in the future is itself another debatable question-we have to take in hand the question and grapple with the problem of the reform of our laws and the entire system of administration of justice. It is a crucial question. Now if we analyse the official amendment-as I would like to call it-we may see that clauses (a) and (b) of the new article give a very limited scope for appeals we know that it is only once in a blue-moon that an order or acquittal is reversed by the High Court, and that it is also very rare that a High Court takes over a case and decides it itself. So the only right of appeal which may be granted in a substantial number of cases would be the one falling under the purview of sub-clause (c). The very application of this article would, thus, depend upon the rules which have to be made under the proviso attached to the said sub-clause. So everything depends upon the rules; but there is another point also. My honourable and learned Friend Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava happened to observe during the course of his speech to-day that there is justification not only for appeals in cases of sentences of death but in other cases also and that we should take that question also in hand. With all respect to the erudition and experience of my learned Friend Pandit Bhargava I submit that this is bound to involve the same problem, the problem of-to use the rather state phrase- “Justice delayed is Justice denied”. Obviously also if every criminal case is allowed to go in appeal to the Supreme Court it is bound to result in a considerable amount of delay in the disposal of cases. This would not inspire much confidence in the system of administration of justice. Law’s delays have been proverbial ever since Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. We have to make some such provision in our laws that at least in our country we find out or evolve some method by which we may eliminate those delays. I submit that we should also not lose sight of the fact that recently there has been an appreciable rise in the incidence of crime in our country. Everybody we have reports from provinces and we read reports of crimes in the newspapers. We see that there is almost a sort of crime wave in some parts of the country at least-we cannot lose sight of the happenings that are taking place on our Eastern and Western borders. We cannot lose sight of these facts as also of the incidents that are taking place in Calcutta and around it. We have to take into account the fact that there is bloodshed and turmoil in out neighbouring countries. Only this morning papers showed that while there were wars and battles raging already in the countries on our eastern borders, there has been bombing in a neighbouring country on our western side also. At such a critical juncture it is only proper that we must see that there are no inordinate delays in the disposal of cases and in the administration of justice in our country. I submit that, as the guardians of the freedom and liberty that we have won for the country, we must see that this is not lost in a chaos of crime and lawlessness. I would request that in my humble opinion the question of right of appeals in these cases may better be left over to the Parliament to deal with.
