In a country affected by a perennial adjournment culture in court cases, Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs), with their almost unprecedented performance emerged as the only way for rape and sexual abuse survivors to seek and ensure justice.
According to a recent report by India Child Protection, in 2022 while the disposal rates of rape and POCSO cases across all courts in the country were a mere 10 percent, the FTSCs displayed much higher efficiency at 83 percent which further improved to 94 percent in 2023.
The report, ‘Fast Tracking Justice: Role of Fast Track Special Courts in Reducing Case Backlogs’, also warned that given the present disposal rate, the country would need to dispose of at least one rape or POCSO case every 3 minutes to clear the backlog as of December 2023 within a year, assuming no new cases are added to the existing backlog.
The report recommended setting up 1000 more FTSCs for clearing the backlog and notes that the unutilized amount in Nirbhaya Fund would be sufficient for the operation of these additional courts for the next two years. The report warns that without these additional FTSCs, the country may never be able to clear its backlog of pending rape and POCSO cases.
Recommending an urgent need to make FTSCs central to ensuring justice for the victims, Bhuwan Ribhu, child rights activist and Founder of Child Marriage Free India, said, “India is reaching the tipping point to end the long-awaited justice in rape and child sexual abuse cases. This is the crucial moment where we must invest in the safety and security of our women and children, ensuring their right to justice by disposing of all pending cases within the next three years by creating 1,000 new FTSCs."
He said this is also the moment to provide for rehabilitation and compensation for victims and to promote a legal deterrent in society by making a policy for time-bound disposal of cases and appeals across all courts, including High courts and the Supreme Court, and affixing accountability across the justice delivery process.
Child Marriage Free India (CMFI) is a nationwide campaign comprising over 200 NGOs in 400+ districts against child marriage, and India Child Protection is one of the partners of the CMFI.
Warning that India would need approximately 3 years to clear the existing backlog of 2,02,175 rape and POCSO cases at the level of FTSCs if no new cases are added, the report recommends immediately making all 1,023 FTSCs functional and setting up 1,000 more FTSCs across the country.
The report stated that these estimated years for completing backlog can go on a forever infinity loop if new cases are added to the existing FTSCs. To date, out of the earmarked 1,023 FTSCs, only 755 are functional in the country.
The report clearly showed how Fast Track Special Courts can accelerate the process of clearing the backlog and highlights that since the initiation of the FTSC scheme, a total of 2,14,463 out of 4,16,638 cases have been disposed of. Maharashtra (80%) and Punjab (71%) have recorded a high rate of case disposal, while West Bengal has recorded the lowest rate of disposal (2%) among all states and union territories. Notably, the state has made only 3 out of 123 earmarked FTSCs functional so far.
To implement the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018, which prescribes strict trial times for rape and POCSO cases, and to comply with the directives of the Supreme Court, the government created the Fast Track Special Court (FTSC) Scheme in August 2019 for the expeditious disposal of rape and POCSO Act cases.
The report recommended utilising the unutilised amount of the Nirbhaya Fund for the establishment and smooth functioning of additional FTSCs. “The additional FTSCs can easily operate for at least 2 years with the available funds, as INR 1,700 Cr. is unutilized, while the requirement is INR 1,302 Cr.,” the report suggested.
The report further stated that a victim's battle for justice does not stop even when the FTSC convicts the accused; it continues until the appeal process in higher courts is completed. “Thus, it is necessary to specify appeal and trial timelines to guarantee prompt justice. In this regard, policies could be framed specifying timelines for filing appeals at the High Court and Supreme Court levels,” it said.
Other recommendations to clear the backlog include making real-time data on acquittal and conviction in rape and POCSO cases available nationwide; including the status of case disposal on the FTSC dashboard so that victims and the state can challenge acquittal orders through real-time data and case status tracking; and making data on pending cases in High Courts and the Supreme Court available.
The report used multiple secondary data sources for gathering relevant information, including Crime in India Reports published by the National Crime Records Bureau, Government of India, various parliamentary questions and answers, and information published by the Press Information Bureau. The study also used case files from the Access to Justice for Children Programme (A2J) to understand the impact of delays in case trials on victims.
