New Delhi, Sept. 8 -- The Supreme Court's prescription for judicial delay has run into an uncomfortable question of its own. It took a bench in the top court more than two years to pronounce a judgment it had reserved on May 15, 2024, even as the same court, just three months ago, prescribed three months as the outer limit for the other constitutional courts to deliver reserved judgments. A bench of justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra on Monday refused to quash a CBI corruption and cheating case against pharmaceutical major Sanofi India Limited over alleged irregularities in the purchase of medicines by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mysuru, involving an alleged loss of Rs.3.53 lakh to the government. In its 99-page judgment, the bench laid down the parameters for holding a corporate entity criminally liable, saying a company, though a juristic person, could be prosecuted without necessarily arraigning or identifying the natural person responsible for its affairs. The court, however, said it was not enough merely to allege that a corporation committed an offence or possessed the requisite mens rea (mental state required to establish criminal liability). The allegations must prima facie disclose that some natural person or people acted on behalf of the corporation, that such action was connected with the offence in question and that the surrounding circumstances did not make the existence of mens rea "patently absurd or inherently improbable". To be sure, the judgment in the Sanofi case was reserved on May 15, 2024, when senior advocate Sidharth Luthra appeared for Sanofi and the CBI was led by Additional Solicitor General SV Raju. The verdict was finally delivered only on Monday, taking the period between reservation and pronouncement to more than two years. The case itself had been pending before the Supreme Court for over seven years, with proceedings before the Bengaluru CBI court remaining stayed for that period following the top court's 2019 order. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on May 29 directed that high courts "shall endeavour" to pronounce a reasoned judgment within a maximum period of three months from the date of reservation. It also created an institutional mechanism to flag delays, requiring registrars general to place judgments pending beyond three months before the chief justice concerned, who could direct the bench to pronounce the judgment within two additional weeks....