SC issues rules for day-to-day criminal trials

The Supreme Court, ina recent order, issued guidelines for conducting day-to-day trials in criminal cases and asked high courts to forma committee to have a serious discussion on implementing this rule for important and sensitive cases.

- Abraham Thomas

The order was passed by a bench of justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan, which rued the practice followed by trial courts that takes months, sometimes years to examine witnesses in criminal trials, violating the law as provided under section 309 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (now Section 346 of the BNSS 2023) which requires every trial or enquiry to be concluded expeditiously and witnesses to be examined on a day-to-day basis.