Interestingly, while the Special Court, CBI Judge Sunil Mehra refused to grant such an appeal, the court with concurrent jurisdiction, the Special Court, ACB headed by Judge Mridula Bhatkar trying cases registered by the Anti Corruption Bureau gave the benefit of the SC judgement in seven cases.The SC had on October 8, 1998 in the Raj Deo Sharma case held that in cases where an offence punishable with imprisonment for a period not exceeding seven years, whether the accused is in jail or not, the court shall close the case on completion of two years from the date of recording the plea of the accused on the chargeframed. In offences punishable with imprisonment for a period exceeding seven years, the court shall close the case on completion of three years from the date of recording the plea of the accused.

I P Shankaran a deputy superintendent with the ONGC at Uran who had an offence registered against him in 1987 under section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 for holding assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, moved the Special CBI Court here in December seeking benefit of the SC judgement, since there was no development on his case. However, judge Sunil Mehra refused the application in January 1999.

Shankaran then filed a writ petition at the Bombay High Court where a division bench of Justice A V Sawant and Justice P D Upasani last week upheld the lower court's judgement. It held that no interference was necessary in the case and directed the special court to expedite Shankaran's case.

The bench based its verdict on the arguments made by Additional Solicitor General DhananjayChandrachud who contended that no time limit could be laid down in cases dealing with serious offences and that even in the Raj Deo Sharma case, exceptions were listed out by the SC and these included cases involving economic offences. He cited the cases that were mentioned in the SC judgement as example - the A R Antulay v/s Ramdas Nayak case of 1992 and the Common Causes v/s Union of India, 1996 both dealing with the issue of the right of state and society in prosecuting the offender as opposed to an individual's right to speedy trial.

Chandrachud said the Supreme Court had restrained from setting down time limits for cases dealing with economic offences even when there were bigger benches involved. He cited the A R Antulay case that had a division bench of seven sitting judges deliver the judgement.

Similarly even in the Common Causes case of 1996, once again dealing with the question of systemic delays in prosecution, the SC declined to fix any time frame and only gave directions on how a speedy trialwas to be conducted.

He added that even in the Raj Deo Sharma case, the judgement was specific that the directions were in addition to and without prejudice to the directions in the Common Causes case of 1996.

Accepting his arguments, the bench upheld the decision of Judge Sunil Mehra who had said that economic offences relating to corruption, misappropriation of public funds, cheating (whether under PCA or the Indian Penal Code (IPC)), remain unaffected by the cumulative effect of the judgements in the Common Cause case and the Raj Deo Sharma's case.