The Himachal Pradesh High Court directed lower courts in the state to dispose of all the rape cases which are pending for more than a year before March 31 and send the compliance report.
The court directed all the Sessions and Additional Sessions judges, Presiding Officers of Fast Track courts and Principal Magistrates of Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB) in the state to dispose of the rape cases which were more than one-year-old before March 31.
A communication in this regard was sent by Registrar General of the High Court to all the 12 Sessions Judges, seven Additional Sessions Judges, eleven Presiding Officers of Fast Track courts and eleven JJB of the state on January 11.
As per the information received from HC, till January 3 this year, as many as 330 cases of rape were pending before various courts in the state which included maximum 60 cases in Mandi Sessions Division, followed by Kangra 59, Kinnaur (Rampur) 52, Shimla 39, Bilaspur 19, Hamirpur 10, Solan 37, Sirmaur 33, Kullu 10, Chamba 9 and (minimum) Una 8.
Acting on the High Court directions, the lower courts have started identifying such cases.
