Times of India: Mumbai: Saturday,
March 15, 2014.
The Bombay
high court on Friday directed the state government to reply in a case of
setting up of fast-track courts for hearing incidents related to atrocities
against women.
A division
bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Amjad Sayed gave the direction while
hearing a PIL by Vihar Durve who sought the appointment of additional judges to
try cases of crime against women. The petition said the backlog of such cases
had been increasing every year across the state. It was true even of those
cases that have been transferred to fast-track courts. There were 2,332 cases
pending in fast-track courts in 2012, Durve was informed under the RTI Act.
Durve's
advocate Narayan Bubna said that despite the SC direction for setting aside 10%
of existing courts as additional fast-track courts, no efforts were made.
"The high court registry had written to the state to comply with the
direction, but it has not been taken seriously by the government," Bubna
said. - Rosy Sequeira
The judges
remarked that despite recruitment drive there were few takers for the post of
judges in district courts . You want more fast track courts? Where are the
judges ? The last three recruitment drives could not fill up even 50 percent of
the posts,'' said Justice Oka. Government pleader Sandeep Shinde submitted that
100 fast track courts created earlier have been continued by the government.
The judges
then said the State must file an affidavit within four weeks on creation of fast
track courts. They also directed the High Court registry to be added as a party
and posted the next hearing on April 22, 2014.
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