Plea in High Court seeks more addl prosecutors for fast-track, POCSO courts

New Delhi: A plea has been moved in the Delhi High Court seeking directions to the AAP government to create posts of additional public prosecutors and then appoint them to the 55 fast track and POCSO courts in the national capital.

The application has been moved by the Delhi Prosecutors Welfare Association in a pending petition before the high court which it had initiated on its own to deal with the issues pertaining to working conditions and appointment of public prosecutors.

The application, filed through advocates Kushal Kumar and Harsh Ahuja, has claimed that the Delhi government has "refused to create posts of additional public prosecutors to be posted in the 55 fast-track and POCSO courts (existing and proposed)".

POCSO courts are those set up to deal with offences under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

The association, also represented by advocates Aditya Kapoor and Akash Deep Gupta, has stated in its plea that the Supreme Court had in 2019 directed setting up of special POCSO courts in each district where there are more than 100 cases under the POCSO Act.

The apex court had also said that these courts would be funded by the central government and the fund will also take care of appointment of presiding officers, support staff, special public prosecutors and other necessary infrastructure, the application has said.

It has further said that as speedy disposal of POCSO cases was being hampered due to non-availability

of public prosecutors (PPs), the Directorate of Prosecution ordered that in such situations, the substitute PPs should be present.