Was there an ulterior motive behind delaying Yakub Memon's trial?

Yakub Memon's trial was grossly delayed and I blame the prosecution for it. In 1996, I had made a written submission to the court for the separation of the trial, because I could see that it was impossible to complete the trial in the foreseeable future. This was on the basis of a number of Indian and English cases. There were separate chargesheets and their joinder was uncalled for and absolutely unnecessary because each of those accused according to separate chargesheets, even with minimum infraction of law, had to wait till the final judgment. And this caused injustice. It did happen. Those who were punished for a year or two, had to wait for the verdict for 12 years. The joinder of trial had made it impossible for the prosecution or defence to conduct the trial or for judges to fathom the depth of evidence. It was a stupendously uphill task because there were transactions within transactions bound by the charge of conspiracy. The prosecution insisted on separate chargesheets with a joinder of charges in one trial, and the judge decided accordingly. After Justice Patel, came Justice Kode. He was like Alice in Wonderland with no clue of the evidence. He needed time to read the evidence and then to give his verdict. It was a superhuman expectation that the judge should give his verdict soon. So, that was another cause of delay.

The prosecution had an ulterior motive to delay the trial, which will be a separate issue to discuss. They examined a large number of witnesses in relation to varied transactions, which meant they also had to be cross-examined at length. After written submissions were filed in January 1996, the order framing charges was passed in April 1996 and from June 1996 the ordeal of trial started. I had assured the court of my assistance till the framing of charges and from June 1996 I withdrew myself. The arguments finally began in January 2001. Over 1,000 witnesses were examined; 25,000 pages of oral evidence recorded and other records ran into almost 25,000 pages more. As a lawyer, I know that a person can read 100 pages per day comfortably to prepare for a case to argue; at the most 200. But with documents running into thousands of pages, it was obviously a near-impossible task. The final submissions were heard from January 2002 and were over by October 2002. The public prosecutor gave a rejoinder the same month. And the judgment came in 2007. The trial period itself spanned from 1995 to 2007.

Thereafter the case went to the Supreme Court. Only two courts examined the records; the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) court as the trial court and Supreme Court as appeals court. Considerable time was consumed on the paperwork. Preparation of appeal was another massive task for the lawyers from both sides. The Supreme Court took three months to hear the appeal. With oral evidence running into 25,000 pages and documentary evidence into almost 25,000 pages, how closely did the amicus curie and the court read them within a span of three months? The task of appellate review was thus near-impossible. And the blame goes to prosecution and prosecuting agency. They refused to apply rationale and reasonableness and it was treated as a prestige issue.