With a view to expedite trial of pending cases in various sessions courts of Delhi, lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung on Saturday sanctioned 55 new posts of public prosecutors. Currently, there are 245 public prosecutors of various ranks to represent government in criminal cases of six districts courts in Delhi.
‘The Directorate of Prosecution was facing acute shortage of public prosecutors for presenting the cases in the various courts of Metropolitan Magistrate and session courts and was requesting the department for obtaining sanctions of creation of requisite number of public prosecutors,’ said GP Singh, additional home secretary of Delhi government.
The sanctioned posts of public prosecutors include 23 posts for assistant public prosecutor, 31 posts for additional public prosecutor and one post of chief prosecutor in the Directorate of Prosecution.
‘The requirement for new posts also arose due to creation of new courts in Delhi,’ he added. Delhi High court had also issued directions to government in 2009 to deploy more public prosecutors so that the criminal justice system does not suffer due to the absence of the public prosecutors in any criminal court. ‘Delhi high court has also directed for keeping a back up of 10 per cent of the strength of the public prosecutors in each and every district to ensure that during certain exigencies also, the criminal courts will not go unrepresented with these public prosecutors,’ he added.
He further added that the government would soon recruit these prosecutors. Currently, Delhi government has 160 assistant public prosecutors, 71 additional public prosecutors and 14 number of chief prosecutors.
As per records of Delhi courts, the total number of cases pending before magisterial courts as on 1 May were 3,51,272. Cases pending in the courts of additional sessions judges were 21,821 (including 1,511 murder and 1,374 rape cases); and cases pending before the court of additional district judge were 58,255. Besides, the number of motor accident cases is 15,195, while 51,517 cases are pending in the courts of civil judges. Around 10,486 cases are pending in the court of rent controllers. Delhi has six districts courts — Tis Hazari, Karkarduma, Patiala House, Rohini, Dwarka and Saket.