New Delhi, July 13: The role of fast track courts (FTCs), set up to lessen the burden of nearly two crore cases pending in trial courts, has come under scanner with the Supreme Court today asking all the high courts to give status reports within one month about their case disposal rates. A bench comprising Chief Justice V N Khare and Justice S B Sinha directed the high courts to "take stock of the disposal of cases by FTCs" and file a report before the Supreme Court. "Whether these courts are really fast track or they are sitting idle, the high courts should find out," the bench said while hearing a petition filed by Brij Mohan Lal, in which the court is looking into the implementation of the scheme envisaging setting up of 1734 FTCs across the country under 100 per cent Central government funding.
It was pointed out to the court that despite the sanction of money the states were lagging behind in notifying the FTCs in their districts and a total of only 1394 such courts have been set up even after two years. The bench then directed all the states to file affidavits within one month indicating the manner in which they were filing up the posts of judges for FTCs and the steps taken to create the sanctioned number of FTCs in their states. Bureau Report