The Hon’ble Supreme Court in K. Pounammal v. State Represented by Inspector of Police (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 1014) made significant observations on the suffering endured by individuals when criminal proceedings remain pending for an unreasonably long period.
The Court observed:
“The prolongation of a criminal case for an unreasonable period is in itself a kind of suffering. It amounts to mental incarceration for the person facing such proceedings. For a person who is convicted and who has appealed against his or her conviction and sentence and who everyday awaits the fate of litigation, spends time in distress. In the present-day system of administration of justice, in which proceedings have often gone on protracted unreasonably and therefore unbearably, the passage of long time itself makes the person suffer a mental agony.”
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