The State High Court authorities had expresed his concern about large pendency of cases in different courts of the State. They had been insisting that more courts needed to be created to handle judicial as well as criminal cases and justice was not delayed. In this connection, the State Government agreed to enroll seven special additional District and Session Judges to manage anti-corruption cases and reduce the burden on Srinagar and Jammu branches of the High Court. Though these judges were appointed belatedly, there was a serious technical flaw about them. Their jurisdiction had not been defined and that created a mess of things. In absence of the defined jurisdiction, cases of corruption could not be processed against alleged persons. Actually, a few days back the Chiefs of the Vigilance Organization and Commission had a meeting with the Governor in which they brought this difficulty to his notice. They said that most of the cases that needed to be processed were not within the jurisdiction of the existing special courts.
In order to end confusion at various levels and give further momentum to the disposal of large number of pending corruption cases, the State Government has defined the territorial jurisdiction of Special Judges (Anti-Corruption) in consultation with the High Court. With this decision, the initiative of conferring powers on the courts of seven Additional District and Sessions Judges to handle corruption cases would start yielding expected results.
Processing cases of corruption expeditiously is of much importance and urgency. Firstly, it will deny the alleged culprits any chance of circumventing evidence against them, and secondly, it will send a message across the entire administrative establishment that corruption and misuse of power will not go unnoticed. If we want that corruption in administration should be uprooted lock, stock and barrel, then accountability factor has to be strengthened and made fully operative. In a democratic state the alleged people have to be given the opportunity of defending themselves before the law and no arbitrary decision can be taken.
With the defining of jurisdiction, we expect the special courts to begin the processing of the cases in their respective jurisdictions expeditiously. And the expectations of the State High Court that these special courts will reduce pendency considerably will also be realized.
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