Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
As of January 31, 2023, 843 fast track courts have been set up across different states and union territories. Image Source: IANS
The 14th Finance Commission (FC) had recommended the establishment of 1800 Fast Track Courts (FTCs) between 2015 and 2020 for the quick resolution of specific cases of heinous nature, civil cases involving women, children, senior citizens, disabled people, people suffering from terminal illnesses, etc.
The Indian Judicial System is facing a number of problems today. But the major challenges faced by the judiciary are the shortage of judges in the different High Courts in the country and the increase in number of pending cases. In order to overcome the problem of pending cases in different courts across the nation, the fast track courts came into existence. The establishment of courts for speedy justice across the nation is the responsibility of the State Governments, who do so in conjunction with the relevant High Courts based on their needs and resources.
The 14th Finance Commission (FC) had recommended the establishment of 1800 Fast Track Courts (FTCs) between 2015 and 2020 for the quick resolution of specific cases of heinous nature, civil cases involving women, children, senior citizens, disabled people, people suffering from terminal illnesses, etc., and property-related cases with more than five years' worth of backlog. In addition, the FC has advised State Governments to use the increased fiscal headroom made possible by tax devolution (32 percent to 42 percent) for this objective. The Union Government has also urged the State Governments to allocate funds for the setting up of FTCs, from the financial year 2015-16 onward.
As of January 31, 2023, 843 fast track courts have been set up across different states and union territories. But have these fast track courts really led to speedy justice and are these courts really fast in nature? According to the information given by the Union Minister of Law and Justice, Kiren Rijiju in a written reply to Lok Sabha, as of January 31, 2023, the number of pending cases in the fast track courts stands at 15,08,842. It must be observed that though the 14th Finance Commission had recommended the establishment of 1800 fast track courts, the figures released by the Ministry of Law and Justice tells that the total number of FTCs functional in India stands at 843. The pendency of cases in the fast track courts have gone up by 40 percent in the last three years from 10.07 lakhs in 2020 to 15.08 in 2023.
The establishment of FTCs, which are in addition to a federally financed programme of fast-track special courts for rape and crimes involving children booked under the POCSO Act, is essentially the responsibility of the states. Rape and POCSO cases that are still pending in these FTCs have been alarmingly prevalent. Since October 2019, the Central Government has been carrying out a Centrally Sponsored Scheme to establish 1023 Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs), including 389 exclusive Prevention of Children from Sexual Offenses (e-POCSO) Courts for the swift resolution of rape and POCSO Act cases. This is done in accordance with the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2018. According to information provided by High Courts, 764 FTSCs, including 411 exclusive POCSO Courts, are operational in 28 States/UTs and have resolved more than 1,44,000 cases. As of the end of January 2023, 1,98,563 cases are still pending in these courts.
The chart below shows the states with highest number of pending cases in fast track courts.
Source: Ministry of Law and Justice
Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of pending cases in the fast track courts across the state. 11,15,130 cases are pending in fast track courts in Uttar Pradesh. Out of the total 15,08,842 pending cases in fast track courts in India, 11,15,130 are pending in UP’s FTCs. This means that Uttar Pradesh accounts for more than 75 percent of the pending cases in India’s fast track courts. Uttar Pradesh is followed by Maharashtra with 1,62,135 cases and Tamil Nadu with 1,07,788 cases in the fast track courts. One of the reason behind high pendency of cases in these states is the highest number of fast track courts in these states. Uttar Pradesh has the highest number ( 372) of FTCs followed by Maharashtra (111) and West Bengal (88). Talking about West Bengal, in spite of high number of fast track courts, the pending cases are lower than the states of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
Talking about the pending cases in the Supreme Court, in the year 2020, there were 64,429 pending cases. The number of pending cases increased exponentially to 96,855 in 2021 but the number dropped to 69,588 in the previous year. This indicates that the Apex Court delivered judgments in more than 25,000 cases in a single year. Coming over to the High Courts, in 2021, 56,49,068 cases were pending in 25 High Courts across the country. This number in 2022 stands at 59,78,714. An increase of more than 3 lakhs. Talking about the pendency of cases in the subordinate cases, around 4 crore cases are pending. Over 4.7 crore cases are pending in courts across different levels of the judiciary.
Numerous other factors, including i) an increase in the number of state and federal laws, (ii) an accumulation of first appeals, (iii) the continuation of ordinary civil jurisdiction in some High Courts, (iv) appeals against orders of quasi-judicial forums going to High Courts, (v) the number of revisions/appeals, (vi) frequent adjournments, and (vii) the indiscriminate use of writ jurisdiction, (viii) lack of adequate arrangement to monitor, tracking and bunching of cases for hearing, (ix) assigning work of administrative nature to the Judges, etc are the factors leading to pendency of cases.
