Adjournment application in criminal matters

Everyone has seen a court scene on screen where the lawyer stands and says “I need more time, My Lord.” In a real Mumbai magistrate's court the same request is made on paper, and the magistrate is under a statutory instruction to grant it only rarely. A witness may have travelled from Nashik; the judge has a hundred matters on the board. So what must the application say to persuade a court that has been told to go on day by day?

In two minutes

An adjournment application in a criminal case asks the court to postpone the hearing on stated grounds; under s.346 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 the court may grant it only for recorded reasons, and not at a party's request unless the circumstances are beyond that party's control.

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