Cuttack: A person cannot be kept under confinement for an indefinite period on the assurance that one day the trial would be concluded, Orissa high court observed while granting bail to Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda in a case registered against him at Tarasingi police station in Ganjam district in 2008.“In such event of long custody, the undertrial prisoner (UTP) would be the worse sufferer,” Justice Gourishankar Satapathy said on Tuesday, adding, “If the UTP is acquitted of the charge after remaining in custody for a substantial period, the process cannot be reversed to give the UTP his earlier life because it is an irreversible process.”The 56-year-old Maoist leader was arrested from a residential house in Berhampur by state police on July 18, 2014. Panda has since been in jail. He was wanted by police in different districts as several Maoist related cases were pending against him at the time of arrest. The case registered at the Tarsingi police station in Ganjam district was one of them.Pointing out that right to speedy trial is a “fundamental right of an accused”, Justice Satapathy observed, “Keeping a person in detention for a period of more than 10 years without the assurance of speedy trial would by any standard constitute violation of right to speedy trial as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.”As per records, out of 132 cases registered against Panda, he has been acquitted in 97. Out of the remaining 35 cases, he has been convicted in one case and granted bail in six, prior to Tuesday.In the Tarasingi police station case, Panda is accused of rioting with deadly weapons along with co-accused and setting fire to an office and furniture by hurling bombs.“No doubt, the allegation against the petitioner (Panda) is grave and serious, but the prosecution is unable to produce any convincing evidence till today to justify the further detention of the petitioner in custody,” Justice Satapathy observed, while granting him bail on furnishing bail bonds of Rs 50,000 with two solvent sureties each for the like amount.