India, Jan. 26 -- The Supreme Court has expressed displeasure that an undertrial prisoner, arrested on a murder charge, has been lodged in jail in Jammu and Kashmir for seven years and questioned the delay in the trial.

A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan noted that only four prosecution witnesses out of 19 have been examined till now and sought an explanation from the J&K Government and the trial court concerned on why the trial was pending for the past seven years.

"We will take the state Government and the prosecuting agency to task if appropriate reasons for the delay in examining the witnesses are not given.

"You have to give a satisfactory reason to justify the delay in completion of the trial," the bench told the...