'40% Posts Are Vacant'-Karnataka HC Refuses Further Time Sought By Govt. For Appointing Prosecutors In District Courts

A division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Hemant Chandangpudar, said "If 40 percent positons are vacant it is obvious that criminal justice system has come to a standstill." It orally observed that "The courts are criticized often but what are the judges supposed to do if there are no prosecutors. The situation at present is such that one prosecutor is attending to two different courts in several talukas."

The state government sought and extension till end of March for appointment of prosecutors on contract basis, as regards direct appointment the process has been initiated, the court was informed. To which the bench suggested that "considering important criminal cases are pending the government may consider appointing special public prosecutors."

As per report filed earlier by Principal District Judge states that there are three categories of public prosecutors in the state. A total of 187 sanctioned posts of Public Prosecutors in the State, 70 are vacant. Out of 411 sanctioned posts of Assistant Public Prosecutors, 204 posts are vacant. Out of 123 sanctioned posts of Senior Assistant Public Prosecutors, 18 posts are vacant. Therefore, about 40% posts of Prosecutors are vacant.

The report states that in some districts and taluks, prosecutors are hardly available. At many district and taluk places, prosecutors are not available on all working days and they attend on few selected working days during the course of the week. Therefore, so many working days of the criminal courts go waste as trials cannot proceed in the absence of the prosecutors.

The bench gave the direction while hearing a suo-motu petition initiated for seeking directions against the State Government to fill in all the vacant posts of prosecutors.

On the last hearing the court has observed that "Under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, every accused has a Right to have a speedy trial. If the trials are delayed due to non-availability of the prosecutors, there will be a violation of fundamental rights of the accused under Article 21 of the Constitution of India."

It had added "Failure of the State to appoint Prosecutors has adversely affected the administration of justice as far as criminal matters are concerned. We must note here that total pendency of criminal cases in the trial courts in the State is of 8,10,730 out of which 61,867 criminal cases are more than five years old and 10,650 criminal cases are more than10 years old."