Fast Track Courts PAPER LEAK
Fast Track Courts PAPER LEAK
—The CJP and Opposition leaders criticised the announcement
saying it did not address their key demands for accountability and the resignation of Pradhan.
—INVESTIGATION - 45 major exam paper leaks
Last month, The Indian Express published an investigation on the status of cases linked to 45 major exam paper leaks over the past two decades, in which each exam had at least 1 lakh applicants or candidates.
The investigation covered
- 27 job recruitment exams,
- 18 higher-education entrance tests,
- school board examinations, and spoke to investigators and senior government officials.
— The findings:
At least
- 1,658 people arrested,
- 925 charge-sheeted,
- 18 convicted in two cases,
- 32 acquitted in two cases,
- 43 still in judicial custody.
- only a tiny clutch of senior officials faced action.
silver bullet to judicial delays
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise to set up fast-track courts (FTCs) to take up paper leak cases has turned attention to what is seen as a silver bullet to judicial delays:
the fast-track court.
Both the government and the judiciary have periodically relied on FTCs to expedite the
- legal process for specific,
- high-priority offences.
— There is no single, central legislation that governs these courts
Fourteenth Finance Commission (2015–2020)
The push to dedicate courts to specific demographics came from the Fourteenth Finance Commission (2015–2020), which recommended setting up 1,800 FTCs to expedite the trial of heinous crimes such as
- murder,
- kidnapping,
- and extortion,
- property disputes pending for over five years.
- vulnerable demographics,
- including women,
- children,
- senior citizens,
- persons with disabilities and individuals afflicted with terminal illnesses.
— centrally sponsored scheme to establish fast-track special courts (FTSCs)
In 2019, following an amendment to
- the criminal laws
- a directive from the Supreme Court,
- the Union government launched a centrally sponsored scheme to establish fast-track special courts (FTSCs).
Funded partially by
the Nirbhaya Fund, these special courts are exclusively dedicated to the
time-bound trial of rape cases and offences under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
— deadline for their trials
Litigants do not have an automatic, statutory right to a fixed deadline for their trials.
The Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita recommends that trials should ideally be completed within two years and trials for sexual offences within two months.
— Under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of FTSC, each FTSC is expected to dispose of
- 41 to 42 cases per quarter,
- which translates to a target of at least 165 cases annually.
— FTCs were functioning
As of January 2026, 862 regular FTCs were functioning across 21 states and union territories.
Alongside them 774 FTSCs — including
- 398 exclusive POCSO courts — were operational across 29 states and union territories.
— The disposal rate for the special courts
is around 96%, meaning they were either heard or dismissed.
In 2024, 88,902 new cases were instituted in FTSCs, while 85,595 cases were resolved.
On average, an FTSC
- disposes of about 9.5 cases per month,
- nearly three times the 3.3 cases cleared monthly by a regular trial court of similar jurisdiction.
— pendency remains
Despite these high clearance rates, the volume of litigation means pendency remains a persistent challenge. By the end of 2023, over 2.4 lakh cases were still pending in FTSCs.
Do you know:
— The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024
is a strict anti-cheating law enforced from June 21, 2024. It covers major exam bodies like the
- Union Public Service Commission (UPSC),
- National Testing Agency (NTA),
- Railway Recruitment Board and Staff Selection Commission (SSC) to stop examination leaks, frauds and cheating.
— Section 3 of the Bill
lists at least 15 actions that amount to using unfair means in public examinations for monetary or wrongful gain.
— These acts include:
- “leakage of question paper or answer key or part thereof” and colluding in such leakage;
- “accessing or taking possession of question paper or an Optical Mark Recognition response sheet without authority”;
- “tampering with answer sheets including Optical Mark Recognition response sheets”;
- “providing solution to one or more questions by any unauthorised person during a public examination”,
- and “directly or indirectly assisting the candidate” in a public examination.
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