Supreme Court grants Article 32 bail after nine-year trial delay in murder case
A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Prasanna B. Varale granted bail under Article 32, holding that nine years’ incarceration with a stalled trial shocked its conscience.
The Supreme Court has granted bail to a man held for more than nine years by invoking its powers under Article 32 of the Constitution, treating the prolonged incarceration and stalled trial as a violation grave enough to warrant direct relief. In Liakat Ali v. State of Jammu and Kashmir, decided on 16 July 2026, a bench of Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice Prasanna B. Varale allowed a criminal writ petition seeking bail. The petitioner had been in custody for over nine years and two months in a murder case, with only 12 of 30 prosecution witnesses examined. The Court found that the continued delay in trial and prolonged incarceration “shocks our judicial conscience,” and directed the Trial Court to release him on appropriate conditions. The order shows the Court using Article 32 to remedy delay that it attributed to no fault of the accused.
How the petition reached the Court
The petitioner approached the Supreme Court directly under Article 32, seeking bail on the ground that he had been under incarceration for more than nine years and two months. His case was that the trial was proceeding at a snail’s pace, for no fault of his.
His bail application had attained finality in 2024. Even after that, there was no substantial progress in the trial. As matters stood, only 12 of 30 prosecution witnesses had been examined before the Trial Court.
Counsel for the petitioner submitted that he was a young boy at the time of the alleged occurrence, and that the charge rested on circumstantial evidence. The petitioner invoked the presumption of innocence and the principle that bail is the rule and jail the exception.
The State’s objection
Counsel for the respondent-State argued that nothing prevented the petitioner from filing a fresh bail application. The offences alleged were punishable under Sections 302, 382 and 201 read with Section 34 of the Ranbir Penal Code, 1989. On that basis, the State submitted that no interference was warranted.
Why the Court intervened
The bench acknowledged that in the normal course it would not have entertained the petition. It departed from that position because of the specific facts before it.
The Court recorded that the petitioner was a teenager at the time of the alleged occurrence and had been charged with murder on circumstantial evidence. He had been in custody for nine years and two months for no fault on his part, and the trial was likely to take further time.
The bench stated a duty tied to that delay: when an accused is under incarceration, it is incumbent upon the Court and the prosecuting agency to expedite the trial. Reading these facts together, the Court held that the situation “shocks our judicial conscience.”
Order
The Court invoked its powers under Article 32 and granted bail to the petitioner, leaving appropriate conditions to be imposed by the concerned Trial Court. The Writ Petition was allowed, and any pending applications were disposed of.