How are Special Courts different from Fast Track Courts? Can Special Courts be a solution to pertaining judicial inefficiency?
Refer - The Hindu
IAS Parliament 7 years
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.
