THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finally, the capital district gets a court exclusively to deal with atrocities against women and children. The additional district and sessions court for women and children was inaugurated on Saturday by Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan, Judge-in-charge of the District Judiciary. This is the second trial court exclusively for women and children in the state; the first came up in Ernakulam in 2015.
The trial court is expected to expedite cases that have accumulated over the years but there are concerns that the court has not been made fully child-friendly. “It is inevitable that cases will be fast-tracked, as the Judge will be hearing only such cases” said advocate J Sandhya, member of the State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights.
Experts say that a child-related case normally took four to five years to get settled. “This could be shortened to four-five months,” Ms Sandhya said. The Ernakulam experience, too, has been encouraging. “Women and child-related cases have been diverted to this court in Ernakulam, and the trial is definitely moving at a faster pace,” said advocate Sandhya Raju of Human Rights Law Network.
However, the Child Rights Commission has called for a more child-friendly ambience in the Court. “For instance, we insisted that a child-friendly witness box should be set up at the court. But this has not been done,” said Commission member Sandhya.
Such a witness box will keep the child invisible to everyone else except the Judge. “This would give the child the confidence to speak his mind,” Sandhya said. A model exists in Kottayam. Further, the Commission also wants the prosecutor to be a female; now it is a male who holds the post.
The Court has been set up under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), 2012. There are more than 1250 POSCO-related cases that have piled up in the district and sessions court ever since the Act came into force in 2012. As for atrocities against women, there are nearly 400 pending cases.
