The Allahabad high court has asked Uttar Pradesh government to furnish details of all such criminal cases in the state in which withdrawal of prosecution had been sought by the government in the last 10 years.

Passing the order on January 4 this year, a division bench comprising justice Amar Saran and justice Ramesh Sinha also said the state's principal secretary (home) and principal secretary (law) will have to appear in person if the details were not furnished within a month.

The court said "it is disappointing that our order dated 10.03.2010, seeking a list of all the accused persons whose withdrawal was sought by the state government was not furnished even up to 14.12.2011 and even no counter-affidavit was filed in this case even though by then one year and nine months have elapsed".

"Today again, time is being sought although a counter affidavit relating to the present petition has been filed but no details of the accused persons, whose withdrawal of prosecution was sought by the state government and the circumstances in which the withdrawal was sought and the fact of the withdrawal of the cases, has been furnished to us", the court added.

"We allow one month and no more time to the state government to furnish the said details by means of a counter affidavit", the bench said fixing March 13 as the next date of hearing in the matter.

"It is made clear that the said detailed information should relate to the cases in which the withdrawal of cases in which the withdrawal of prosecution has been sought in the last five years.

"The state government may also furnish information about the total number of cases with details in which prosecution was sought to be withdrawn in the prior five years", the court said.

It said "it is also made clear that if the said details are not furnished to us by the said date, the principal secretary (home) and the principal secretary (law) will again be required to be present before this court".

The court, which was hearing a criminal writ petition filed by one Ghanshyam Tripathi in 2010, also asked its office to "explain why it has not registered this case as a criminal PIL as directed by order dated 14.12.2011 and it must do so positively as directed earlier".