Supreme Court Orders Fresh Hearing After Convict Challenges 20-Year Bail and Reduced Sentence

A man convicted of murder in 2002 spent two decades on bail without lifting a finger to pursue his appeal. When the Jharkhand High Court finally heard the case in November 2024, he did not show up. The court appointed a lawyer to represent him—an amicus curiae with fifteen years of experience—and that lawyer succeeded in recharacterizing the killing as culpable homicide rather than murder. The sentence dropped from life imprisonment to five years. The convict then rushed to the Supreme Court, claiming he had been treated unfairly because no one had told him the lawyer was coming.

Justice Dipankar Datta, writing for the Supreme Court bench, found the complaint almost amusing. The case, he wrote, brought to mind the old saying about giving someone an inch and watching them ask for a mile. The facts were straightforward: the man had been sentenced to life in 2002, appealed to the High Court, and had his sentence suspended while bail was considered. He got the bail. For the next twenty years, his appeal sat on the docket, listed for hearing repeatedly, while he went about his life outside prison walls. He never bothered to follow up. He never pushed the court to decide his case. He simply waited, enjoying his freedom.

When the case finally came before a Division Bench of the High Court in late 2024, the convict did not appear. The court called his name multiple times. Still nothing. At that point, the High Court made a decision: it would appoint someone to argue on his behalf. The amicus curiae took the case and presented evidence suggesting the blow that killed the victim was not intentional. The High Court accepted this argument, downgraded the charge, and reduced the sentence to five years of rigorous imprisonment. The convict was ordered to surrender.

Instead of accepting this outcome, the man appealed to the Supreme Court. He had two complaints. First, he said, the amicus curiae was appointed without his permission. Second, the lawyer did not argue the points he himself had wanted argued—points that, he believed, would have secured his complete release. Justice Datta addressed both objections with surgical precision. The High Court, he noted, had no legal obligation to inform the convict before appointing an amicus. The court's anxiety to hear a long-pending appeal was not improper. And the convict had only himself to blame: he had enjoyed bail for two decades without keeping track of his own case or pushing the court to decide it.

Yet the Supreme Court also recognized a gap in procedure. Justice Datta acknowledged that it would have been better if the convict had been alerted to the amicus's appointment. The court therefore issued a directive for the future: whenever an appellate court appoints an amicus curiae to represent a convict whose own counsel is absent, the court should consider issuing a notice to the convict's address. This notice would give the convict a chance to contact the lawyer and discuss the case. If the convict refused to accept the notice, it could be posted on the outer wall of his residence. If neither the convict nor his counsel appeared for the hearing, the High Court could proceed, satisfied that it had acted fairly.

The Supreme Court also took the occasion to reflect on a broader pattern. Justice Datta observed that it was common knowledge—almost a rule of practice—that convicts who obtain bail while their appeals are pending often neglect their cases deliberately. They stay away from court, they become untraceable, they do nothing to move their appeals forward. They are, in effect, misusing the concession of bail to extend their freedom indefinitely. Such convicts, the court said, need to be handled with firm hands. But in this particular case, the convict would get a fresh hearing before the High Court, with the new procedural safeguard in place. The Supreme Court sent the matter back for that hearing, leaving the ultimate question of his sentence to be decided again.