Supreme Court Flags growing vacancies in the Judicial Branch of the District

The Supreme Court today (March 4) expressed concern about the vacancy of judges in the Judicial Power of the District, resulting in delay in the judgments in special courts created for the crimes of the Pocso Law.

The court regretted that although special courts were created, they are now overloaded due to the lack of judges. Therefore, the various directions approved by the Supreme Court to accelerate the judgments are not practically feasible due to the inappropriate number of judges.

A bank of Bela M. Trivedi and Pb Varale He made these oral comments in the Suo Moto procedures initiated in relation to addressing systematic defects under the law of protection of children of sexual crimes (Pocso), 2012.

Senior VV Giri lawyer, The Court also appointed Amicus in this case, the Bank reported that several addresses have been approved and to establish special courts of POCSO for fast justice, appointment of special prosecutors, training of persons associated with the process, etc. The court has been monitoring compliance with these directions. Since the matter did not appear for a long time, Giri said that an updated report of the states can be called to examine whether compliance has taken place or not.

On this, Judge Bela said: “What has suggested, special courts of Pocso, are there. Special prosecutors are also there. Training of people associated with the process is a (continuous process) … Now, things have been simplified. This was the position a long time ago.“

When it was noted that there had been a request for contempt for breach of certain directions, Judge Bela that certain courts of the court can never be fulfilled, since there are not enough judges to treat and monitor these cases.

She said: “We have no judges. Where do we get the judges? Who is the fault? All courts are overloaded, we do not receive judges. All vacancies are remaining. One has to be realistic. We are not receiving judges of the district level. All positions are vacancies. Courts for Pocso.

Viri recommended that a state report of the general registrar of all higher courts could be sought to examine the pendency of the cases of Pocso. Even in this regard, Judge Bela commented orally that the Supreme Court and the higher courts are already monitoring many cases and each court has a limitation of how long can monitor a certain case.

“It is difficult to give more instructions only for the sake of our instructions … directing the superior courts to provide the data would be a useless exercise according to“Judge Bela added.

Finally, the Court postponed the matter and will listen to it on March 25. He added orally that on the next occasion, the court get rid of the matter. However, there was no direction to the higher courts.

Case details: In the alarming increase in the number of informed child violation incidents | SMW (CRL) No. 1/2019