Karnataka HC slams ‘adjournment culture’ as trial in POCSO case remains pending for 12 years
The High Court of Karnataka has deprecated the “culture of repeated adjournments” in criminal trials, expressing shock that a 2014 case involving the sexual assault
The High Court of Karnataka has deprecated the “culture of repeated adjournments” in criminal trials, expressing shock that a 2014 case involving the sexual assault of a si year-old girl at a Bengaluru school remains pending even after 12 years. Noting that the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, mandates expeditious trials, preferably within one year from the date of taking cognisance, the High Court directed the Bengaluru Rural Fast Track Special Court (FTSC-II) for POCSO cases to conclude the criminal proceedings within eight weeks. What the statute says “A prosecution that the statute envisages should attain finality within a year has remained pending for over a decade. Such delay cannot receive judicial approbation. It is not merely contrary to the letter of the statute, but strikes at its very soul,” the High Court said, adding that the legislative mandate had been thrown to the winds owing to the culture of repeated adjournments.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna made the observations while disposing of a petition filed in 2024 by the victim girl’s father, who had questioned the fast-track court’s order refusing to summon a magistrate to examine the veracity of the victim’s statement recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973, as the statement recorded did not bear the signatures of either the victim or the magistrate. The petitioner-father had expressed doubts about the validity of the recorded statement sans signatures, while also seeking a direction for the speedy completion of the trial. However, the High Court ruled that there is no provision in the POCSO Act that mandates that statements recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC must bear the signatures of either the victim child or the magistrate.
Noting that the proceedings had languished in the corridors of the FTSC for over a decade, meandering from one adjournment to another, the High Court said such procrastination was “deeply disquieting”. “Every adjournment granted without compelling justification has not merely postponed a hearing; it has prolonged the trauma of a child who entered the criminal justice system as a victim and has remained captive to it for over ten years. Justice delayed, in cases of this nature, does not remain a mere procedural lapse — it assumes the character of a continuing injustice,” the High Court observed. Reliving trauma The High Court also pointed out that a child who has suffered the indignity of sexual abuse cannot be compelled to relive the trauma endlessly merely because the criminal justice system has surrendered to a culture of adjournments.
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