India, Aug. 1 -- In the 2006 Mumbai train blast case, 12 individuals were acquitted by a two-judge bench of the Bombay High Court, which gave a detailed 667-page judgement. The Maharashtra government approached the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the high court's final judgement. It contended that the observations made in the verdict could potentially affect other ongoing criminal trials in the state. This line of reasoning, however, raises a fundamental question: Can the final judgment of acquittal of accused persons be stayed at the interim stage merely because other criminal trials will be affected? From a legal and procedural standpoint, the answer is a categorical no with a caveat about the extraordinary jurisdiction of the Supreme Court - it can pass any order. It is a well-settled principle of criminal law that a judgement of acquittal carries the same legal force as a judgement of conviction. The mere fact that an acquittal might influence pending trials does not provide sufficient grounds for its stay. If the high court had convicted the accused in this case, was the convict equally free to argue that the judgment must be stayed because other trials might be affected? The court would have outrightly rejected this plea. Our legal system gives great value to judicial precedents of constitutional courts. It ensures that, where circumstances are materially similar, past rulings - especially those of constitutional courts - guide future adjudication. Just as judgements affirming conviction are often relied upon to determine guilt in other cases, the verdict of acquittals, based on procedural or substantive infirmities, must be afforded equivalent authority. The system does not discriminate in judicial intervention for the grant of stay of judgements of acquittal vis-a-vis verdicts of conviction. Once a final judgement - whether of conviction or acquittal - is rendered by courts of record, it cannot be stayed while being under appeal, merely to preserve the status quo in other pending matters. The very objective of the judicial process is to do justice based on facts and evidence placed on record before the court, fix accountability, and reflect clarity under the law so that the judgement can be relied upon in subsequent cases, if the law permits. Through detailed and reasoned judgements, high courts and the Supreme Court play a pivotal role in evolving criminal jurisprudence. These rulings serve as practical templates for subordinate courts. They ensure uniform application of law and promote fairness in trials, be it in relation to the standard of proof, treatment of evidence, or procedural safeguards. The established law for criminal trials is that these shall be adjudicated strictly based on the evidence placed on record and evaluated according to the standards of admissibility under the law. If, as the Bombay High Court found, certain confessional statements were vitiated due to coercion or custodial torture, and if such findings are backed by prior judicial reasoning given by the Supreme Court in earlier cases, then these findings can and must be considered as precedents in other similar cases. From the high court's judgement, it appears that the accused persons' confessional statements were recorded while they were in police custody. After those statements were recorded, they were shifted to judicial custody, where many of them retracted their confessions on the very same day. This sequence of events is not merely procedural; it is indicative of a substantive issue of ensuring fairness in criminal investigation and prosecution. The Supreme Court, in earlier decisions, has categorically held that confessions - particularly when retracted - must be viewed with circumspection. Even when procedural safeguards are formally adhered to, the possibility of confessions being extracted through coercion can't be ruled out. Retracted confessions, therefore, must be evaluated in light of the circumstances that prompted the retraction. It has repeatedly emphasised that the phrase "procedure established by law" under Article 21 of the Constitution must mean a procedure that is fair, just, and reasonable. Any State action, including criminal prosecution, must pass this test. A recent judgement by a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court (Justices Vikram Nath and Sanjay Karol) stressed that the Indian criminal justice system disproportionately burdens the accused, particularly those who are economically or socially disadvantaged. In the same spirit, the Court reiterated that a judge is not a mere recording machine. A judge's duty is not limited to mechanically endorsing the prosecution's case; rather, the judge must actively engage with the truth, seeking it out and weighing the evidence with impartial care. In fact, the Supreme Court recently remanded a capital punishment matter back to the high court for fresh consideration, underlining this very principle. A larger issue also begs the question of whether the continued power of police to record confessions while an accused is in their custody is consistent with the modern constitutional understanding of a fair trial. The evolution of fair trial standards must proceed unobstructed. Considering the fact that the jurisprudence of dignity, liberty, and protection against self-incrimination has evolved, the law must now move toward a model where evidentiary value of pre-trial confessions is done away with. If the accused wants to make any voluntary confession, after the charge-sheet is filed or the trial is ongoing, the same can be recorded as per law. The order granting an interim stay sets a disturbing precedent on this final judgement of acquittal, especially when it is thoroughly reasoned and detailed. It will, in some way, influence the minds of trial court judges against the principle of fairness and their duty to act without fear and favour, no matter how inconvenient it may be to the prosecuting State. The stay order will help only those officials who have failed to collect admissible evidence as required by law....