NEW DELHI, July 13:
With traffic challan cases constituting 37.4 per cent of the 2.68 crore cases clogging the lower courts, the Law Commission has come out with a novel way to deal with the situation by recommending appointment of law graduates to preside over special traffic courts.
In its latest report submitted to the Law Ministry, the panel has said if law graduates preside over special traffic courts, judges in the lower judiciary can take care of other pressing cases.
“Recent law graduates may be appointed for short duration (three years) to preside over these special traffic courts. These special courts should only deal with cases involving fines. Cases which may involve imprisonment should be tried before regular courts in order to ensure fair process,” it said.
The report ‘Manpower Planning in Judiciary: A Blue Print’ said facilities should be made available for online payment of fines as well as the payment of fines at designated counters in the court complex to reduce pendency of cases.
The panel, which advices Government on complex legal issues, has also recommended that special morning and evening courts be set up for dealing with traffic and police challan cases which constitute 37.4 per cent of all pending cases in the last three years before the subordinate judiciary.
Referring to 270 vacancies in the 24 high courts, the Law Commission said there was an urgent need to increase the strength of judges in the high courts to ensure that appeals and revisions from additional cases disposed of by subordinate courts is dealt with timely. It said the high courts are already burdened with backlogs and increase in the strength will help them overcome the problem. The report said the recruitment of new judges should focus, as a matter of priority, on the number of judges required to break even and to dispose of the backlogs in a three-year timeframe.
The law panel has also batted for increasing the retirement age of judges of lower courts to 62, bringing it on par with judges of the high courts. Any change in the retirement age of judges of lower courts is the prerogative of state Governments.
According to latest data, there are 4,382 vacancies in the subordinate judiciary in the country, with a maximum of 616 in Bihar.
It said there is an “urgent need” to “fix rational, non-mandatory timeframes for different types of cases and use such timeframes as a basis for setting judge performance standards, litigant expectations and making more robust policy recommendations for the judiciary.”
Quoting a Supreme Court directive, it said it is neither advisable nor feasible nor judicially permissible to draw or prescribe an outer limit for conclusion of all criminal proceedings and therefore it was not in favour of mandatory timeframe for disposal of cases. (PTI)

CHENNAI, July 13:
Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi today favoured treating juveniles accused of heinous crimes like rape on par with adult offenders.
Speaking to reporters here, she said according to the police, 50 per cent of all sexual crimes were committed by “16-year-olds who know the Juvenile Justice Act so they can do it.”
“But now for premeditated murder, rape, if we bring them into the purview of the adult world, then it will scare them,” she said.
Former WCD Minister Krishna Tirath during the previous UPA regime had proposed that juveniles above 16 years guilty of heinous crimes be treated on par with adult offenders.
The move was however opposed by various NGOs and National Commission of Protection of Child Rights which stated that such a proposal was against child rights. (PTI)