27% posts of public prosecutor lying vacant in Karnal district

Parveen Arora

Karnal, March 22

With about 27 per cent posts of public prosecutors lying vacant at the Karnal District and Sessions Court and subdivisional courts in Assandh and Indri has resulted in the pendency of cases.

As per the information collected by The Tribune, out of 19 sanctioned posts, five are lying vacant in the trial courts of Karnal, Indri and Assandh. The shortage of deputy district attorneys is even more concerning as out of six, three posts are yet to be filled.

The gravity of the situation can be understood with the fact that most of the times one prosecutor is forced to handle cases of more than one court simultaneously.

The Karnal District and Sessions Court has one Sessions Court, six courts of the Additional Sessions Judge and eight of the Judicial Magistrate First Class. One public prosecutor is required for each court.Three posts of deputy district attorney are lying vacant, while one assistant district attorney has been deputed to the Assandh court as both the posts of assistant district attorney are lying vacant for the past few months. The Indri subdivision has two courts and two public prosecutors. “Due to the shortage of public prosecutors, advocates have to wait for hours as the existing prosecutors are already overburdened. The proceedings of each court are conducted simultaneously. One public prosecutor cannot appear in two courts at the same time, which leads to judicial delays,” said advocate Sandeep Choudhary, president, District Bar Association, Karnal. Recently, 10 new judges have joined the District Court. After their training, 10 new courts are expected to start here soon so, there is a need to employ more public prosecutors to check the pendency of cases, he added. Kanwarpreet Bhatia, former president, said the number of public prosecutors was sufficient an year ago, but after the transfer of five assistant district attorneys and four deputy district attorneys no new appointments or transfers were witnessed. “The government must recruit new public prosecutors ,” he added. Due to the shortage of public prosecutors, litigants are forced to return without the examination or recording of their statements, said advocate Harish Arya, former vice-president of the District Bar Association.

Gravity of situation

The Karnal District and Sessions Court has one Sessions Court, six courts of the Additional Sessions Judge and eight of the Judicial Magistrate First Class. One public prosecutor is required for each court