Polity

KEY POINTS

Special courts

·        Special courts have existed in the subordinate judiciary since before Independence.

·        A special court is one which is to deal with special types of cases under a shortened and simplified procedure.

·        They are established under a statute meant to address specific disputes falling within that statute.

Fast track courts

·        Fast track courts on the other hand were the result of recommendations made by the 11th Finance Commission.

·        They were actualized though an executive scheme as opposed to a statute of the legislature in case of special courts.

·        Moreover these are meant to be set up by the State governments in consultation with the respective high courts.

Concerns with special courts

·        Understanding - Special courts are a significant means of addressing the specificities of certain statutes and judicial backlog.

·        However, there is little evaluation of how this system works and a vacuum exists in research and analysis of special courts.This has led to inconsistencies in legislation and operation.

·        Ambiguities - The Special Courts case clearly uses the phrase “established under statute”, meaning the establishment of a new court.

·        However statutes use terms like “constitute”, “create”, “designate”, “notify”, “appoint”, etc leading to ambiguities asthese terms have not been defined or procedurally explained.

·        Leaving options such as “may” set up special courts, further add to the ambiguities.

·        This also creates confusion with respect to appointments, budgetary allocation, infrastructure, and listing practices.

·        Purpose - There are more special courts under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 than SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

·        However the former is said to have a tenth of the number of registered cases as the latter (2015).

·        This points to the unclear legislative intent for creating special courts.

Way forward

·        The SC should address the constitutional status, and analyse policy questions pertaining to the need and efficiency of special courts. The working of special courts has to be studied critically.

·        Parameters such as the frequency and number of effective hearings and calculating the number of pending cases need to be developed.

·        These are essential to check the growing number of special courts being established without definite purposes.