Aiming to clear backlog of cases and provide speedy justice to the people, the state government will appoint over 600 judges in district courts by the end of this fiscal. The process of appointment will start from November.
Law and Justice Minister Brijesh Pathak said that there were around 2,500 posts of judges in the state of which 630 posts were lying vacant. “The process to appoint civil junior judges will start from November and we expect that the appointments will be made by March next year so that the newly-appointed judges are sent for training,” he said.
“We want to complete the appointment process by this fiscal only. UP Public Services Commission has initiated the process. Once the appointments are made, we will have enough bench strength to clear the backlog of cases. This will, in turn, provide speedy justice to the masses,” Pathak told ‘The Pioneer’ in Lucknow on Monday.
The Law Minister said that the government was committed to providing speedy justice to the people and therefore it had decided to set up 125 fast track courts and 11 family courts.
“We will also have 13 commercial adalats to deal with commercial cases. Besides, all district headquarters will have permanent lok adalats.
The government is also going to appoint 35 new chief judicial magistrates by March next year. All new adalats and appointments have been cleared by the Cabinet and ground work is being done to give a final shape to the mission,” Pathak said.
The minister said that the government had also directed government advocates not to seek fresh dates unnecessarily for cases and plead cases efficiently without any delay.
“It has come to our notice that sometimes government advocates unnecessarily linger cases by seeking fresh dates. We are keeping an eye on those advocates who are known for delaying cases,” he said.
When asked about the government decision to withdraw criminal cases against political leaders, Pathak said the process was on and over 2,500 cases had been withdrawn.
“We have received over 25,000 applications but only political cases are being withdrawn after careful scrutiny. Beneficiaries in this process are leaders from all parties. Even political cases against Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party and Congress leaders have been withdrawn,” Pathak said.