Orissa high court flags ‘slow violence of pendency’ while quashing vigilance case against IAS officer

CUTTACK: The Orissa high court has expressed deep concerns over systemic delays and procedural lapses in anti-corruption prosecutions.The strong concerns were raised by Justice Sanjeeb Kumar Panigrahi in a 41 page judgment in which he quashed a vigilance case against senior IAS officer Bijay Ketan Upadhyaya on April 17.While granting relief to the officer, the court used the case - in which although cognizance was taken over two years ago, charges had not yet been framed - to highlight a recurring issue affecting vigilance matters. “This Court considers it appropriate to observe that the issue of delay, though arising in the factual setting of the present case, is by no means confined to it,” Justice Panigrahi said, pointing to a wider pattern of prolonged proceedings.The Judge noted that delays often stretch across every stage — investigation, filing of charge sheet, cognizance and framing of charges. “It is a matter of serious concern that Courts are repeatedly being confronted with vigilance prosecutions that remain pending in a state of abnormal inertia,” he observed.Justice Panigrahi cautioned that judicial restraint in the early stages of investigation should not be misused. “Such restraint cannot be understood as a licence for the investigating agency to keep the matter pending for an indefinite or unreasonable period,” the court said, adding that the right to speedy trial under Article 21 applies even at the investigation stage.Though delay alone may not justify quashing a case, Justice Panigrahi said the situation becomes serious when coupled with legal defects. In this case, it was found that the prosecution was undermined by flaws in the sanction process under anti-corruption law. “Where such delay is coupled with a serious procedural infirmity touching the validity of sanction and the legality of cognizance, the prejudice assumes a more concrete character,” he held.The judgment also dwelt on the human impact of prolonged vigilance proceedings. “A vigilance prosecution, by its very nature, carries a burden far heavier than the ordinary weight of a criminal case,” the Judge said, referring to reputational harm, professional setbacks and personal distress faced by the accused.In a strongly worded observation, Justice Panigrahi said, “In that sense, a vigilance trial can itself become a punishment, not by sentence of law, but by the slow violence of pendency.”The Judge warned that excessive delays risk undermining justice itself, noting that “when time itself is allowed to become an instrument of suffering, the trial ceases to be a search for truth and begins to resemble punishment without judgment.”