High workload, fewer judges: Why justice is slow at Delhi’s special fast-track courts

FTSCs were set up to reduce the number of pending rape and POCSO Act cases in order to provide justice to victims of sexual crimes and to “declog the judicial system of the burden of case pendency”. The central government in 2019 had implemented a centrally sponsored scheme for setting up 1,023 special courts, including 389 ePOCSO courts. The scheme was initially for a period of one year between 2019-20 and 2020-21. Its continuation has since been approved.

As per the mandate, cases in special courts should be ideally disposed of in a year. Data, however, shows that the city is far from meeting that target.

As of May 2023, Delhi had cumulatively disposed of just 1,049 cases while the total pending cases stood at 4,369. Only Puducherry performed worse than Delhi as it has just one fast-track special court and had disposed of none of the 209 pending cases.

In comparison, UP and Bihar had a disposal rate of 36% and 28% respectively. Meghalaya and Jammu and Kashmir both had low disposal rates of 22% each. Among the best performers were Mizoram and Kerala at 66.5% and 65% respectively.

Meanwhile, Delhi’s relative performance with previous years shows a positive trend. Its FTSCs recorded a disposal rate of 4.2%, 11% and 16.6% in 2021, 2022 and the first three months of 2023 respectively, showing an upward trend.

Moreover, from 2021 to 2022, while India’s overall pending cases rose by 17%, the number for Delhi was just 0.36%. Similarly, while disposed of cases in India rose by 98%, Delhi’s figure rose by a whopping 183% — close to twice the national average.

Why the delay

According to judges and legal experts, reasons for the poor disposal rates of FTSCs are multi-faceted.

Deepika Kinhal from Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, whose area of focus is judicial reforms to lower delays in India, points out that both qualitative and quantitative issues exist. “One problem is vacancies… the other is the lack of special training provided to judges so they can dispose of cases quickly,” she said. “Regular judges from normal courts work in FTCs on a deputation basis, while these courts require special judges.”

As of 2022, all over India, lower courts had a vacancy of 5,850 as against the sanctioned strength of 25,042 — a vacancy rate of 23%.

Advocate Manish Bhadauria cited increased case workload with low capacity as a reason for poor functioning of FTSCs. He also said transfer of special court judges just like normal judges was a problem. “These courts are fast only in name… what we need along with fast-track courts is also fast-track laws,” he said.

In terms of the number of special courts, Delhi is not so far behind large states. While in 2023, Delhi had 1 special court for 12.5 lakh people, UP had 1 special court for 10 lakh people. Maharashtra and Gujarat had 1 court for 4.1 lakh and 4 lakh people respectively (using projected population estimates provided by the Government of India).

However, in terms of cases per court, other states which had a greater workload than Delhi performed far better. Tamil Nadu, for instance, had 556.5 cases per special court in 2022 — Delhi had 311.25. Despite this Tamil Nadu had a disposal rate three times that of Delhi.

Similarly, Bihar, with 426.6 cases per court, had a disposal rate double of Delhi in that year.

While Bihar had a vacancy rate (vacancies divided by sanctioned strength) of 33% in lower courts in 2022, its disposal rate was better than Delhi, which had a vacancy rate of 22.9%. Similarly, UP with a vacancy rate of 31.9% had a similar disposal rate as Delhi.

Delhi’s vacancy rate in subordinate courts was in fact marginally lower than the national average of 23% and its disposal rate was less than half the national average of 24%.

A Rajya Sabha question answered in February 2023 by the then Law and Justice Minister Kiren Rijiju gave details on the funds allotted to FTSCs by the central government till December 31, 2022. The data shows that each special court received Rs 24 lakh on average. A special court in Delhi on average received Rs 26.5 lakh. It is not the case, therefore, that Delhi’s special courts are being starved of funds.

Judges weigh in

A fast-track courts judge, who refused to be named, said: “Perhaps you should look at how many witnesses turn hostile.” A hostile witness is one who is willing to go back on previous statements made by them. A study conducted by the National Law School Bangalore, which analysed 667 POCSO case judgments between 2013 and 2015, stated that victims turned hostile in 67.5% of cases. This could perhaps explain a relatively higher acquittal — and subsequently higher disposal rate — of POCSO courts in some states.

According to another fast-track court judge, who wished to remain anonymous, many FTSC judges dispose of relatively easier cases while investigation for the remaining cases, which are harder to dispose of, doesn’t even begin properly. This could also give rise to a higher acquittal rate. It then becomes important not just to check the number of disposed cases, but also the progress in pending cases, said the judge.

A POCSO judge said the pendency in Delhi was high due to fewer judges dealing with a very high workload, implying more cases per judge. Many courts in Delhi have just 1 FTSC judge, she added.

“In Delhi, one POCSO judge sees at least 250-300 cases. In some courts, it is as high as 750 cases per judge,” said the judge.

She also blamed Covid for the high pendency. FTSCs in Delhi started effectively functioning in January 2021. This coincided with the pandemic. “In POCSO matters, recording of evidence takes the most time. Since physical hearings were not happening, all work suffered,” said the judge.

Delays in providing evidence were also flagged by the judge as a reason for high pendency: “I had to wait eight years in some cases just to get a forensics report… we have to run after IOs and SHOs to file supplementary chargesheets.”