At a time when the government has sent a presidential reference to the Supreme Court on judiciary’s “interference” in executive’s policy decisions with the controversy arising out of the 2G case verdict, the top court in an important judgment on Thursday refused to intervene in Centre’s policy to stop funding of nearly 1,800 fast-track courts in the country set during the NDA rule to clear the backlog of cases.
“Being a policy decision which has already taken effect, we decline to strike down the policy of the Union of India referred in a letter dated September 14, 2010 not to finance the fast track court scheme beyond March 31, 2011,” a bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar said.
Though the government had taken a decision in September 2010 to stop funding the scheme, it was continued during 2011-12 on an interim direction of the apex court to ensure that the FTCs were able to complete the trail in pending cases.
And the 13th finance commission had made special arrangement of funds for this purpose. The top court in its Thursday verdict, however, left it to the “wisdom” of the state governments whether to continue the scheme or close the courts, which till date were funded by the Centre and most of them were headed by retired sessions judges.
The top court said states, which had taken a decision to continue the FTC scheme beyond March 31, 2011, “shall adhere” to the respective deadlines for example as some states, like Orissa fixing its as March 2013, Haryana; March 2016, Andhra Pradesh; March 2012 and Rajasthan; March 2013.
The FTC scheme was considered the “brainchild” of then NDA law minister Arun Jaitley to put some important criminal case, including terror crimes on fast track. It initially was meant for five years and envisaged the appointment of retired sessions judges on ad hoc bases to head these courts.