It took a bench in the top court more than two years to pronounce a judgment it had reserved on May 15, 2024, even as the same court, just three months ago, prescribed three months as the outer limit for the other constitutional courts to deliver reserved judgments. The Supreme Court’s prescription for judicial delay has run into an uncomfortable question of its own.
The court, however, said it was not enough merely to allege that a corporation committed an offence or possessed the requisite mens rea (mental state required to establish criminal liability). The allegations must prima facie disclose that some natural person or people acted on behalf of the corporation, that such action was connected with the offence in question and that the surrounding circumstances did not make the existence of mens rea “patently absurd or inherently improbable”.
If the judgment still remained pending, the chief justice could assign the matter to another bench for fresh hearing and disposal. The bench had stressed that judicial delays could not be allowed to undermine litigants’ rights, particularly where personal liberty was involved. The latest judgment thus comes against a backdrop in which the Supreme Court itself has repeatedly sought to impose discipline on the time taken by constitutional courts to conclude matters after hearings.
To be sure, the judgment in the Sanofi case was reserved on May 15, 2024, when senior advocate Sidharth Luthra appeared for Sanofi and the CBI was led by Additional Solicitor General SV Raju. The case itself had been pending before the Supreme Court for over seven years, with proceedings before the Bengaluru CBI court remaining stayed for that period following the top court’s 2019 order. The timeline of the verdict in this case assumes significance against the backdrop of a judgment delivered by a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on May 29, when the Supreme Court laid down sweeping and binding timelines for high courts to decide cases and pronounce reserved judgments. The directions were framed under Article 142 of the Constitution after the Supreme Court noticed several criminal appeals, including cases involving life convicts, in which judgments had remained reserved for years.
The May judgment directed that high courts “shall endeavour” to pronounce a reasoned judgment within a maximum period of three months from the date of reservation.
It also created an institutional mechanism to flag delays, requiring registrars general to place judgments pending beyond three months before the chief justice concerned, who could direct the bench to pronounce the judgment within two additional weeks. The verdict was finally delivered only on Monday, taking the period between reservation and pronouncement to more than two years.
