Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Mukul Wasnik has urged the Andhra Pradesh government to set up exclusive special courts to reduce the pending cases pertaining to atrocities against SC & STs.
Addressing a press conference after reviewing the implementation of the Protection of Civil Rights Act,1955 and the Scheduled Caste and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities)
Act 1989 today, he said that level of pendency of these cases was 70 per cent in Andhra Pradesh. Raising concern over the huge number of pending cases in the state, he requested the state government to set up exclusive special courts for the SC/STs.
He also advised the state government to form the state level vigilance monitoring committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister. He also asked the government to convene the meeting of the vigilance monitoring committee once in a year and every month at the district level under the chairmanship of District Judge to review the cases.
He observed that Andhra Pradesh is imparting good education to the SC/ST students by setting up Residential educational institutions. Most of the students who studied in these institutions were getting admissions in IITs and other National institutions. It will help further to bridge the gap between the SCs and other communities. In SC/ST cases the conviction rate at national level is 31 percent where as in Andhra Pradesh it is 13 percent only. He said conviction rate is very poor in Andhra Pradesh. Incidence of atrocities in Andhra Pradesh during 2010 was 5057.
Mr .N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, Chief Minister, Mrs Sabita Indra Reddy, Home Minister, Mr Pitani Satyanarayana, Minister for Social Welfare, Mr P.Balaraju, Minister for Tribal Welfare, Mrs Geeta Reddy, Minister for Industries, Mr Pankaj Dwivedi, Chief Secretary, Mr Dinesh Reddy, Director General of Police and District Collectors, Superintendent of Police and other officials attended the review meeting.(NSS)