SHILLONG, MAR 14: Meghalaya deputy chief minister, holding Law portfolio, Rowel Lyngdoh said that the scheme for setting up fast track court funded by the union government will expire by 2015 after which all the cases will be transferred to the normal court.
Lyngdoh also informed the ongoing budget session of the Meghalaya assembly on Friday that the union government will not extend the fast track court scheme after 2015.
Lyngdoh was replying to a supplementary question raised by UDP legislator Paul Lyngdoh who has sought an assurance from the government on the need to extend the fast track court facility to the other districts of the state.
Paul said that there is a rising graph of crimes against women in the state. “The government needs to extend this initiative to the eight districts which are yet to be covered under the fast track courts since the entire idea of setting up fast track courts is to accelerate the movement of the wheel of justice.”
To this, the deputy chief minister said, “We do not have any intention to establish more fast track courts in other parts of the state as yet, because the funds sanctioned by the Centre for purpose of setting the fast track courts will be over by 2015.”
At present, only three fast track courts located at Shillong (East Khasi Hills), Jowai (West Jaintia Hills) and Tura (West Garo Hills) have been established in the state, the deputy chief minister informed. He also added that when the fast track courts’ time is over, their pending cases will be taken by the normal courts for disposal.
Paul, however, said, “This is wrong on the part of the government to say that these fast track courts will be discontinue after 2015, it will be a denial of rights and justice to such weaker sections of the society.”
Paul argued that as per the Supreme Court order, once funding is over, it should be the efforts of the state governments to set up such courts on their own.
The deputy chief minister assured that the department would look into the matter and examine on whether the state requires to established more fast track courts or not.
A total of 268 of 1435 cases are lying pending in the three existing fast track courts while 1165 cases were disposed off.
Giving a break up, the deputy chief minister said that Jowai fast track court has around 170 pending cases while it had disposed off 373 out of the 543 cases taken up.
Of the 558 cases taken up, 521 were disposed off while only 37 were pending in the Tura fast track court. In Shillong fast track court, 61 cases are pending, 273 were disposed off out of a total of 334 cases that were taken up, the deputy chief minister said.
Referring to Jowai FTC, HSPDP legislator Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit expressed dissatisfaction on the slow progress of the court in disposing off the pending cases.
Denying this, the deputy chief minister said that disposal of cases is not at all slow because the court (Jowai) despite having as many as 543 cases was able to dispose of 373 of them.
Countering to the deputy minister’s reply, Basaiawmoit accused him of misleading the house claiming that there is no slow progress on disposing of cases when Jowai FTC has 170 pending cases.
Basaiawmoit further suggested that the state government set a stipulated time frame to the FTC to ensure that pending cases are disposed off immediately.
On the status of the Williamnagar gang rape case inquired by Basaiawmoit, the deputy chief minister however could not provide the detail since he said that information was not available with him.- By Our Reporter
To this, the deputy chief minister said, “We do not have any intention to establish more fast track courts in other parts of the state as yet, because the funds sanctioned by the Centre for purpose of setting the fast track courts will be over by 2015.”
The fast track court can be set up even in 2020 if the money to set up is in the bank and generate interest for the extra expenditure. How will the fund get over 2015? The answer wasn’t clear enough