A 40-year-old pending criminal appeal case before the Allahabad High Court of India has got the Supreme Court of India to the matter of the increasing problem of construction pendency in India.
Questions on the conviction of Vijay Singh for his murder and life imprisonment arising from the case in 1985 were deferred by a bench comprising Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice A S Chandurkar, whose examining the particulars of the matter expressed their concern regarding the situation.
In 1983, Singh was arrested for allegedly killing his brother and in 1985 he was found guilty by a sessions court in Kanpur. Thereafter, he appealed to Allahabad High Court. But the appeal has been pending and was rejected in February 2026 after almost 41 years.
The Supreme Court pointed that Singh was in custody for just few months and was on bail for nearly 43 years pending the final determination of his appeal. The court has permitted him to remain in jail pending its proceedings.
At the hearing, the bench invited lawyers to suggest how the massive pendency in the Allahabad High Court could be tackled. One of the proposals offered is to dismiss the decades-old prosecution appeals to cut short pendency but the court said that such approach was not possible because of the reasons that the arguments in the appeals cannot just be thrown out because they have been pending for a long time.
The Supreme Court stressed upon the importance of smart and creative means through which timely justice must be provided to the litigants while also ensuring their rights and public confidence in judicial system.