SC/ST Act Delays And The Tarikh Pe Tarikh Trap Who Really Holds The Blame

Introduction

A case gets filed. A man gets arrested. Years pass. The trial never ends. This is the story of countless cases under the SC/ST Act in India. People often blame the government of the day. They blame a minister or a prime minister. But this blame misses the real point. The real machinery that runs a trial from first hearing to final verdict is the judiciary. When a trial drags on without end the question must be asked. Who controls the pace of that trial. This essay opens up that question in plain terms.

II. The Three Organs Of The State

India runs on three pillars. The legislature makes laws. The executive enforces those laws. The judiciary interprets laws and delivers verdicts. Each pillar has a separate job. The legislature writes the rulebook. The executive plays by that rulebook. The judiciary acts as the umpire and also as the final decision maker. This separation matters here. It tells us exactly where a wrong application of a law can actually happen.

III. The Legislature And The Law

Parliament passed the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act in 1989. The goal was clear. Caste based violence needed a strong shield in law. In March 2018 the Supreme Court in the Kashinath Mahajan case added new safeguards to this Act. These safeguards required a preliminary inquiry before an FIR a senior officer's approval before arrest and allowed anticipatory bail for the accused. This 2018 judgment held that the law was open to misuse and it caused strong protests among many groups. Parliament then stepped in. In August 2018 Parliament passed an amendment that added Section 18A and reversed the safeguards set by the court. This shows one thing clearly. The legislature only sets the rule. It does not run a single trial in any courtroom. (Legality of SC/ST Act Amendment +2)

IV. The Executive And The FIR

Once a law exists the police must follow it. If the law under Section 18A says no preliminary inquiry is needed the police register the FIR at once. If the law bars anticipatory bail the police act within that bar. The executive here has a narrow job. Register the complaint. Investigate the facts. File the chargesheet. The executive can certainly make mistakes during investigation. A wrong arrest or a weak chargesheet can happen. But once the case moves into a courtroom the executive largely steps back. From that point on the fate of the case rests with the judge.

V. The Judiciary And The Long Trial

This is where the real story begins. A trial has many stages. Framing of charges. Examination of witnesses. Cross examination. Final arguments. Judgment. Every single stage needs a court date. Every date gets fixed by a judge. Every adjournment gets granted by a judge. When the 2018 amendment was challenged the central government told the Supreme Court that a high rate of acquittal in these cases cannot alone prove that most cases are false. This point matters. An acquittal after ten years does not undo the ten years already lost. The law may allow a full trial. But it is the court that decides how fast or how slow that trial moves. (vidhijudicial)

VI. What Is Tarikh Pe Tarikh

Tarikh pe tarikh means date after date. It became a famous phrase from a courtroom scene in Hindi cinema in the early 1990s. The phrase stuck because it captured a real problem. A case gets listed. The lawyer seeks time. The judge grants a new date. Months pass. Then years pass. This cycle can repeat for a decade or more. For the person under trial life stands still during this entire time. This cycle is not a small technical issue. It is the single biggest source of injustice inside the Indian legal system today.

VII. The Scale Of The Problem

The numbers show how deep this issue runs. By September 2026 the total number of pending cases across all Indian courts crossed five crore eight lakh. Over one hundred eighty thousand of these cases have been pending in district and high courts for more than thirty years. Most of this load about five crore twenty lakh cases sits inside the district courts. These are the very courts where most SC/ST Act trials actually run. Judge vacancies add fuel to this fire. In recent years about one fifth of sanctioned judge posts in subordinate courts stayed vacant while several high courts ran with more than forty percent of judge posts empty. A system this stretched cannot move fast for any single case no matter how urgent it feels to the people involved. (Pendency of court cases in India +3)

VIII. Why The Judiciary Carries Primary Responsibility

Consider the actual chain of control inside a trial.

I. The legislature only decides what counts as an offence and what bail rules apply. It does not decide any single hearing date.

II. The executive only decides how to investigate and what evidence to present. It does not decide how many hearings a case will need.

III. The judiciary alone decides the calendar. It grants or denies each adjournment. It decides how many witnesses appear on a given day. It decides when final arguments begin.

This chain shows where true control sits. The legislature frames rules once. The executive applies rules within a case. But the judiciary manages the entire life of a trial from start to finish. If a trial lasts an infinite number of days and the final finding does not support the original charge the direct answer to who is responsible for that long wait sits with the judiciary. The court had full power over the calendar at every single stage.

IX. The Human Cost Of Endless Trials

A trial that never ends does not stay a legal matter alone. It becomes a social punishment. Neighbours form an opinion long before any verdict. A job may be lost. A family name may carry a stain for years. Children of the accused may face taunts at school. All of this happens while the case is still open and while no guilt stands proven in law. If the final verdict later clears the person none of these years get returned to him. This is the real cruelty hidden inside the phrase tarikh pe tarikh. A slow trial does not only delay punishment for the guilty. It also delays freedom for the innocent.

X. The Counter View

A fair essay must open up the other side too.

I. Judges do not create their own staff shortage. Appointment of judges runs through a process shared between the judiciary and the executive. Delay in filling vacant posts is not the judiciary acting alone.

II. Police delay in filing chargesheets on time can also stall a trial before it truly begins.

III. Defence lawyers themselves often seek adjournments as a legal strategy. Not every delay comes from the bench.

IV. Weak court infrastructure and a shortage of courtrooms are matters of executive budget and planning not judicial choice.

These points are real and must be respected. The judiciary does not act inside a vacuum. Still even after allowing for all of this one fact remains steady. Once a case is listed in front of a judge the final word on the pace of that case belongs to the judge alone. Shared blame does not erase the primary control the bench holds over its own calendar.

XI. The Way Forward

Reform is possible and some steps are already known.

I. Fast track courts built only for SC/ST Act cases with a fixed outer limit for trial completion.

II. Strict rules that limit the number of adjournments any single case can receive.

III. Quick and time bound filling of every vacant judge post across all levels of the judiciary.

IV. Digital case tracking open to the public so that delay becomes visible and harder to hide.

V. A yearly public report from every High Court listing cases that cross a reasonable time limit along with the stated reason for the delay.

None of these steps need a new law from Parliament. Most of these steps sit fully inside the power of the judiciary itself to adopt.

XII. Conclusion

The SC/ST Act was framed by the legislature with a fair goal in mind. The executive applies that law as written when it registers a case. But it is the judiciary that decides how long a person waits for justice. Tarikh pe tarikh is not a small courtroom habit. It is the main evil sitting at the heart of long trials and unresolved allegations. When a trial runs for years without end and the final finding does not support the charge the honest answer points toward the judiciary. Open minds on this question are needed now more than ever before real reform can begin.