Monitoring helps bring down pending cases

4/23/2007

V L SRINIVASAN

Hyderabad, April 22: Continuous monitoring of the pending cases, both civil and criminal, in various courts across the State has resulted in their reduction, albeit margina lly, during 2006.

As against 9,59,860 cases on January 1, 2006, there are 9,48,431 cases by December 31, indicating a decrease of 11,429 cases. Fresh ones numbering 5,86,656 were filed in 2006 whereas the total disposal were 5,98,085 during the same period.

Besides continuous monitoring by the High Court every fortnight, establishing new courts and also extension given to the Fast Track Courts (FTCs) are said to be some of the reasons for the reduction in the old cases. ‘‘Andhra Pradesh is among the top five states in bringing down pending cases and Gujarat is said to be leading the list,’’ official sources told ‘Express’.

According to them, co-ordination committees have been formed at district level with the district judge, collector, superintendent of police and other concerned officials for discussing issues relating to criminal justice system and to find out ways and means for expeditious disposal of criminal cases, particularly those relating to undertrial prisoners.

The presiding officers were directed to concentrate more on the disposal of old cases. A proposal for disposal of various types of cases under FTCs, Medium Track and Slow Track Courts is under consideration of the High Court, sources said.

The Central Government has established 108 FTCs at various places in the State which were given extension from time to time and five metropolitan magistrate courts were set up in the Cyberabad metropolitan area of Rangareddy district during 2004.

Last year, nine family courts in the cadre of district judge were set up in as many district headquarters and 10 new courts in the cadre of judicial first class magistrate were sanctioned in the Agency areas of the State.

‘‘The State Government is considering establishment of 10 senior civil judge courts and 25 junior civil judge courts to further bring down the accumulation of cases,’’ sources said.

On its part, the High Court has formulated specific norms for reviewing the out-of-turn of judicial officers and monitoring the performance of each officer twice a year, accorded priority for speedy disposal of cases of senior citizens, matrimonial matters, rape, land acquisition and Intellectual Property Right cases.

The magistrates have also been asked to hold courts in jails for disposal of petty cases involving undertrial prisoners.