Taking strong exception to a murder convict who was granted bail last year but stopped appearing in subsequent proceedings, the Allahabad High Court described it as an “obnoxious tendency” among litigants to secure bail and then avoid hearings by instructing their counsel not to appear.
The Division Bench of Justices J J Munir and Vinai Kumar Dwivedi also noted that while delays in the justice system are often discussed in seminars, the role of litigants is frequently overlooked, who are portrayed as helpless figures between the bar and the bench. “Unfortunately, it is not so.”
Stating that it was time to “show the mirror” to such litigants “about their own conduct and the way they discharge their limited role in court”, the bench on March 18 ordered the issuance of a bailable arrest warrant against the appellant, directing him to surrender before the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Sonbhadra on or before March 23.
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The bench also directed him to furnish a personal bond of Rs. 20,000 and two sureties each in the like amount, along with an undertaking binding himself over to appear before the high court on March 25 at 12 noon.
The bench also directed the superintendent of police (SP) of Sonbhadra district to “ensure that this warrant of ours is served upon the appellant, Ram Narayan, without fail and is not returned by some elusive or friendly policemen putting in a report about Ram Narayan not being available.”
A murder convict and case chronology
The bench took the tough stance while hearing the criminal appeal filed by Ram Narayan in 2022, challenging his conviction and sentence of life imprisonment by the trial court in a 2017 murder case. His counsel, in his submission, stated that Narayan had been falsely implicated and wrongly convicted on circumstantial evidence and on imagined facts, and that there was no eyewitness to the case.
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The appellant, through his counsel, had filed a bail application before a division bench. In the submission, counsel stated that the appellant had remained confined for more than seven years and that, at present, there was no hope of an early hearing of the appeal.
On January 8, 2025, the bench granted Ram Narayan bail, directing him to submit the paper-book and listing the case for hearing the appeal in due course.
Hearing the appeal against the trial court’s conviction on March 18, the division bench observed that Ram Narayan was granted bail by another division bench of the high court on January 8, 2025. The judges, by the same order made on the appeal, directed that the paper-books be compiled and the appeal listed for hearing in due course.
“The due course was not long and the appeal appeared before us on January 30, 2026. No one appeared on behalf of the appellant, leading us to make the following order: ‘The appellant has been granted bail vide order dated 8.1.2025. The appeal is called on. No one appears on behalf of the appellant. The office has reported that the paper books are not ready. Office shall cause paper books in the appeal to be compiled within 10 days’.”
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The bench then listed the appeal for hearing on February 16, directing that the appellant’s counsel appear in writing.
‘Malpractices prevailing amongst litigating public’
While hearing the matter on March 18, the bench said that when the case is called, “no one appears on behalf of the appellant”.
“It is a very obnoxious tendency amongst litigants that after securing bail from this court in a criminal appeal, they instruct the learned counsel not to appear. We would not blame the learned members of the Bar in this matter because the learned counsel cannot appear contrary to the instructions of the litigants whose interest is at stake.”
“No doubt, the learned counsel is an officer of the court and has his own obligations, but the idealism of the principle cannot be stretched beyond realistic limits. It is, after all, a criminal case, where a litigant has the right to be represented by a learned counsel of his choice. If a litigant instructs learned counsel not to appear, the learned counsel has no authority to appear further.”
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“This is invariably the case where the bail is granted in appeals, and the appeals then come up for hearing. These are but a few malpractices prevailing amongst the litigating public, which they seldom pay attention to when they go on a tirade to criticise ills of delays, etc. that ail the court,” the bench observed further.
“Generally speaking, very few exceptions apart, there is no lawyer and no judge before whom a case duly assigned to be argued or heard would not do his duty. But, if those, whose interest is involved, deliberately withdraw or wish the proceedings to go into a lull, it becomes difficult to proceed with the matter, particularly, a criminal case, like a criminal appeal or a trial,” the bench observed.
The bench said options are available to the court, but these involve virtually battling with the litigants in the first instance to compel them to argue and then take up the case on the merits.
“This case, we find, is an instance of the kind that has made us say words that we have mentioned above,” the bench stated.
