Stung by Nirbhaya, CJI wants faster rape trials Delays Have Led To Rise In Such Crimes, says Kabir In His Letter

New Delhi: The brutal rape of Nirbhaya and resultant public outrage stirred Chief Justice of India (CJI) Altamas Kabir to ask the High Courts to fast track trials in all the cases relating to crime against women and warned that delay often reduced deterrence effect of law into insignificance.
    The CJI wrote to the heads of state judiciary reminding them about the spontaneous outburst of outrage and anger over the Delhi gang-rape incident and said, “A large number of cases pending in various High Courts and trial courts in respect of offences against women and, in recent times, there is a marked increase of such cases.”
    “Delay may be one of the factors contributing rise in the number of such cases, in as much as, on account of such delay deterrence pales into insignificance. Time has come when these cases have to be dealt with expeditiously, lest we should fail in our endeavour to arrest the sharp increase of crimes of violence against women,” the CJI said in an anguish-filled letter seeking to assure citizens, especially women, speedy justice.
    Justice Kabir in his January 5 letter said the incident shook the nation’s conscience and asked the CJs ensure that “cases relating to offences against women are fast tracked and taken up for hearing on priority basis, both at the High Court and district levels”. Significantly, the CJI has also taken a New Year initiative to revive the important annual conference of Chief Justices, which was discontinued for more than two years during his predecessor Justice S H Kapadia’s tenure.
    The CJI in his January 2 letter to the CJs had said the April 5-7 conference would focus on “fast tracking of matters relating to offences against women”. Not satisfied with the letter fixing agenda for April meeting, the CJI wrote to the CJs against just three days later asking them to begin the process of fast-tracking the trial in crime against women cases forthwith without waiting for the Conference’s outcome.
    On January 2, the CJI had inaugurated the first of the five fast-track courts at Saket in New Delhi to deal with cases relating to offences against women. The Delhi government has already taken steps to appoint 150 new judicial officers with 1,085 support staff.
    Three days later, he was writing to the CJs requesting them to take steps to immediately set up fat-track courts to deal exclusively with cases of offences against women by deputing officers from existing pool of judicial officers.
    However, Justice Kabir said the CJs must undertake the exercise to identify the number of sessions Judges and Magistrates along with number of support staff for the additional fast-track courts needed to be set up to speed up trial in cases relating to crime against women and approach the state governments for requisite increase in strength of judicial officers and support staff.
    “I am sure that, judging the present day scenario, the state government/Union Territory will not decline the genuine demand of the Judiciary,” he said. At present, 3,670 posts of trial Judges and over 250 post of High Court Judges are lying vacant.