Tatsat Chronicle Magazine

914 Fast Track Courts Functional for Crimes Against Women and Children: Kiren Rijiju

The Law and Justice Minister said, 1,023 Fast Track Special Courts have been approved for expeditious disposal of pending cases of rape under IPC and crimes under the POCSO Act
December 18, 2021
crimes against women and children

India had 914 Fast Track Courts as on 31 October 2021 for heinous crimes and crimes against women and children, among others. The government has further approved a scheme to set up 1,023 Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs) across the country for expeditious disposal of pending cases of rape under IPC and crimes under the POCSO Act, says Law and Justice Minister Kiren Rijiju.

The Government of India is fully committed to speedy disposal of all cases, including cases involving offences against women in accordance with Article 21 of the Constitution and reducing pendency said Law and Justice Minister Kiren Rijiju. The Government has taken several initiatives to provide an ecosystem for faster disposal of cases by the judiciary.

The Fourteenth Finance Commission endorsed the proposal of the Government to strengthen the judicial system in States which included, inter-alia, establishing Fast Track Courts for cases of heinous crimes; cases involving senior citizens, women, children etc., and urged the State Governments to use the additional fiscal space provided in the form of enhanced tax devolution from 32% to 42% to meet such requirements.

As on date, 28 states/UTs have joined the scheme for setting up 842 FTSCs, including 363 ‘exclusive POCSO Courts’. Rs.140 crore were released in the financial year 2019-20 and Rs. 160 crore has been released during the financial year 2020-21 for the scheme; 681 FTSCs are currently functional, including 381 exclusive POCSO courts, which disposed of 64,217 cases as of 31 October 2021. The continuation of the scheme of FTSC has been approved for another two years (2021-23) at a total outlay of Rs. 1572.86 crore, including Rs. 971.70 crores as Central share.

The ministry of women and child development shared the data in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha. The  question sought to know about data on crimes against women from last year. A total of 371,503 cases of crimes against women were registered across the country 2020. The data shows that 398,620 persons were arrested in connection with crimes against women, 488,143 were charge-sheeted, and 31,402 were convicted. Instances of crimes against women in the cities went down by 8.3% in 2020 over the previous year.

Among states and union territories, Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of such cases, with 49,385, followed by West Bengal (36,439), Rajasthan (34,535), Maharashtra (31,954) and Madhya Pradesh (25,640).