Plea to expedite special courts okayed under SC and ST Act

Change India director A Narayanan in a representation to the Registrar, Madras High Court and Niranjan Mardi, Additional Chief Secretary to Government, submitted that based on a plea moved in 2012, which was disposed by MHC in 2015, the then Registrar General wrote to the government in October 2015, with recommendations for sanctioning of Special Courts under the SC & ST Act. 

Based on this, the state Home Department came out with a GO only in April 2017 accepting the proposals for the establishment of special courts in 16 districts in four phases for 2016-2017 at the rate of four courts per year. Accordingly, posts of 15 district judges and 510 other supportive staff were sanctioned. Along with this, a sum of Rs 12.89 crore was sanctioned towards the constitution of the 16 courts. But in the first phase, Rs 3.22 crore was sanctioned for establishing four special courts during 2016-17 at Dindigul, Ramanathapuram, Virudhunagar and Pudukottai. But unfortunately, the progress has been very slow in completing the first two phases despite passage of almost three years since the MHC’s direction. 

Hence, it was imperative that the government bothered to expedite the completion of the eight-special court to realise the objectives of the Act, which pertains to abolishing all forms of atrocities and discrimination against SC and ST communities and provide prompt compensation and rehabilitation to the victims  of such atrocities in these districts, Narayanan said.