A division bench of the Patna High Court led by Chief Justice Sangam Kumar Sahoo has disposed of over 1000 long pending criminal appeals some of which date back to 1994.
Notably, Justice Sahoo was sworn-in as the Chief Justice of Patna High Court in January this year. The judge is set to demit office on Thursday (June 4).
The court passed various directions while dealing with pending 1994 Criminal Appeal (Criminal Appeal 87 of 1994 titled Chhathi Lal Bin v/s The State of Bihar) after conducting an exercise with the aim to dispose of those cases which had abated due to the death of the appellant therein, and due to the non-filing of appeal by the family of the deceased appellants.
Order dated January 21, 2026
On January 21, the Registry had placed before the court data on the pending Criminal Appeals (DB) filed between 1994 to 2015 wherein the appellants were on bail and had sought "well being reports" of the concerned appellants.
The court had then directed, "Superintendent of Police shall obtain a factual and duly verified report from the concerned Station House Officer (SHO), after making necessary local inquiry and verification from available records and sources. If the appellant/appellants is/are dead, then the death certificate, if available, shall be attached with the report. If the death certificate is unavailable, then a report from the local Sarpanch/Ward Member/Councillor of the concerned locality shall be attached. The concerned Superintendent of Police shall ensure that the reports are submitted before this Court within a period of three weeks from today".
Order dated April 15, 2026
The court had thereafter in its April 15 order directed the Registry to submit the Dates of communications and reminders to the concerned police authorities, Status of responses, Well-being status of appellants and the cases already disposed of.
Order dated May 4, 2026
Thereafter the court in its order dated May 4 again sought "well being reports" of the concerned appellants from various Superintendents of Police and other police authorities across the State. The police authorities were directed to furnish the data to the Registry.
On this date the Registry reported that a total communications were made in 12,393 cases, wherein Reports were received in 5,044 cases while reports were awaited in 7,349 cases. The number of deceased appellants identified and cases disposed of were 410.
Order dated May 15, 2026
The court in its order dated May 15 noted the reports submitted by each of the Superintendents of Police overseeing various areas, with regard to status of the pending criminal appeals and the well-being report of the concerned appellants. Upon reviweing the data, the court issued a final deadline of 19.05.2026 fixed for submission of the remaining reports from the concerned district.
Thereafter on May 26, all Criminal Appeals where the sole appellant/all appellants had passed away and where in plea for continuation of appeal filed by legal heirs was filed, was taken by the division bench.
In this entire exercise the high court disposed of over 1000 Criminal Appeals between February to May.
Further in cases where the sole appellant or all the appellants had passed away, during pendency of the Criminal Appeals and no near relative sought for continuation of appeal by filing application for leave and where State did not press for recovery of fine amount, the division bench while taking into account the long pendency of the criminal appeals against conviction set aside the sentence of fine, treated the appeal as abated in respect of sentence of imprisonment and thereafter disposed of the appeal.