New Delhi, July 16 -- Nearly half a century after a murder in a Uttar Pradesh village, and 45 years after six men were sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with the killing, the Supreme Court on Wednesday finally brought the criminal case to a close, acquitting three surviving appellants in a judgment that lays bare the extraordinary delays that continue to plague India's criminal justice system. The judgment brought the curtains down on litigation that outlasted half the lives of those involved. Of the six men originally convicted, only three lived to hear the Supreme Court pronounce on their innocence. Three others died without seeing the final outcome of the case. The case traversed every rung of the judicial hierarchy over 49 years. The murder took place in 1977. The trial court convicted all six accused in 1981. Their appeal then remained pending before the Allahabad high court for three decades, before being dismissed in 2011. The matter thereafter spent another 15 years before the Supreme Court, culminating in Wednesday's verdict. By the time the final judgment was delivered by a bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, three of the six convicted men had died. The six accused convicted by the trial court were Raj Kishore, Hira Lal, Raj Bux, Ram Dhani, Deo Prasad and Subedar. Dhani died while the appeal was pending before the high court between 1981 and 2011, resulting in abatement of proceedings against him. After the matter reached the Supreme Court, Kishore and Prasad also passed away during the pendency of the appeals, leaving only three surviving appellants to await the court's verdict almost five decades after the crime. Of the six convicts, five were enlarged on bail during the pendency of their appeals before the Supreme Court. Subedar remained incarcerated until he was released after being granted remission, having undergone over 14 years of imprisonment. In its judgment on Wednesday, the Supreme Court acquitted the three surviving appellants-Lal, Bux and Subedar-holding that the prosecution had failed to establish their guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The court found inconsistencies between the ocular testimony and medical evidence, noted material contradictions in the prosecution version and held that the evidence did not inspire confidence to sustain the convictions. It observed that the prosecution had failed to prove the individual roles attributed to the surviving accused with the degree of certainty required in a criminal trial, entitling them to the benefit of doubt. Earlier this week, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant unveiled a new roster under which four dedicated benches will exclusively hear the Supreme Court's oldest civil and criminal matters. Speaking to HT on Sunday, Justice Kant said every old pending matter represented a litigant who had waited "years, and sometimes decades, for closure", adding that "the age of a case cannot become the reason for its continued neglect". He said the initiative sought to institutionalise a culture where long-pending litigation receives sustained and uninterrupted judicial attention....