BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Friday directed the state government to submit a time-bound schedule to fill vacant posts of public prosecutors within a month. The court observed that administration of justice was paralysed in Karnataka as far as criminal cases were concerned as the state government had failed to fill huge number of vacancies in posts of public prosecutors. This was observed by the division bench of Chief
Justice Abhay Shriniwas Oka and Justice SR Krishna Kumar.
The court registered a suo motu PIL after the Chief Justice held a meeting on August 17 with regard to the functioning of the subordinate courts and their infrastructure maintenance and other administrative aspects.
The court explained that three category of public prosecutors are required to be filled as per Section 23 and 24 of CrPc. The court said 70 of the 187 sanctioned posts of public prosecutors are vacant. Similarly, 204 of the 411 sanctioned posts of Assistant Public Prosecutors and 18 of the 123 Senior Assistant Public Prosecutors posts are also vacant.
In Karnataka, 8,10,730 criminal cases are pending and 61,867 are more than 5 years old while 10,650 cases are more than 10 years old, the court said. The report attached to the petition indicated that in many districts and taluks, public prosecutors were unavailable on all working days. In many districts, only one prosecutor was attached to multiple courts at a time.
Therefore, unless the posts are filled, it is impossible to reduce the pendency by criminal courts, the court said. The delay in trial is a violation of the fundamental rights, the court said while adjourning the hearing to October 30.