In a rare intervention highlighting the constitutional right to a speedy trial, the Delhi High Court has reduced the sentence of a 90-year-old man convicted in a 1984 corruption case to the period already undergone — amounting to just one day in custody.
Justice Jasmeet Singh, delivering the judgment on July 8, said the prolonged uncertainty faced by the appellant for nearly four decades was “plainly at odds” with the mandate of Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to a speedy trial. He described the prolonged legal ordeal as a “Sword of Damocles” hanging over the appellant’s head for almost 40 years.
“A vital mitigating factor in considering the sentence is the appellant‘s advanced age. At 90 years, suffering from serious health ailments, he is highly vulnerable to the physical and psychological impact of incarceration,” the court observed. “Any such imprisonment would risk causing irreversible harm and would defeat the very objective of mitigating the sentence.”
The court noted that the trial itself had taken 19 years to conclude, and the appeal remained pending for another 22 years. “Such inordinate delay is plainly at odds with the constitutional mandate,” the court said, while reducing the sentence to the time already served and partly allowing the appeal.
The man, Surendra Kumar, a former Chief Marketing Manager at the State Trading Corporation of India (STC), was arrested in 1984 after being accused of demanding a ₹15,000 bribe from a partner of a Mumbai-based firm that had submitted a quotation for the supply of 140 tonnes of dried fish. The complainant, Abdul Karim Hamid, had approached the CBI, which laid a trap and arrested Kumar during the alleged exchange of ₹7,500 as the first instalment.
Though Kumar was released on bail soon after his arrest, he was convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act and Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2002 and sentenced to three years in prison along with a fine of ₹15,000. He filed an appeal that same year but did not challenge the conviction itself, which, the court noted, would remain on his record for life.
The high court also took note that the convict had already paid the imposed fine.
“This case underscores not only the importance of procedural efficiency but also the enduring human cost of judicial delay,” the court concluded.
