₹7.65 theft case concluded by Mumbai court after 49 years

Almost five decades following a theft of ₹7.65, a Mumbai court has concluded a 1977 dormant case involving two anonymous suspects and a plaintiff who stayed missing despite years of law enforcement efforts. This decision represents one of several recent judgments in ancient proceedings that have stayed in stagnation, congesting the judicial framework.

The Mazagaon court shuttered the 1977 file as part of a mission to clear legacy disputes where defendants have passed away, stayed anonymous, or remained lost. That 1977 larceny matter concerned two unknown individuals charged with a theft of ₹7.65, a notable figure fifty years ago. Nevertheless, the pair was never located despite multiple arrest warrants, which forced the litigation into indefinite suspension.

Judicial Magistrate First Class Aarti Kulkarni, presiding at Mazagaon court on January 14, terminated the proceedings, observing that the file was nearly half a century old and had stayed “pending unnecessarily without progress.”

“More than sufficient time is taken. There is no point in keeping the matter pending,” the court said in its order.

The court exonerated the two suspects charged under Section 379 (theft) of the Indian Penal Code, and ordered that the recovered sum of ₹7.65 be restored to the victim.

“If the informant isn’t found, the amount will be deposited into the government account following the appeal period,” the court stated in the order.

It determined that because the pilfered cash was below ₹2,000, the dispute was categorized to be heard briefly under Section 260 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which permits expedited hearings for petty crimes, including robberies where the worth of the assets is minimal, to guarantee rapid resolution.

Similar Cases

Likewise, in a thirty-year-old dispute, a magistrate’s bench cleared a suspect charged under the Indian Passport Act and Foreigners Act, noting he had stayed missing since 1995 when the formal indictment was submitted.

A 2003 reckless driving lawsuit shared a comparable outcome from a magistrate's bench, as a law enforcement update validated that not just the suspect, but the primary complainant and all bystanders, were no longer locatable. The defendant had been charged under Sections 279 (reckless driving) and 338 (inflicting severe injury by conduct risking life or safety) within the IPC.

There was no logical chance of locating the suspect soon, the bench remarked, concluding that keeping the record open forever would be inappropriate.