(This story originally appeared in on Aug 23, 2014)

NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government has drawn up a proposal to set up 1,800 Fast Track Courts across the country to expedite delivery of justice A detailed proposal has been made by the law ministry seeking grants from the 14th Finance Commission which allocates resources for setting up court infrastructure and for initiating judicial reforms.Earlier, in 2000 the Central government had allocated financial resources to the states for setting up fast tract courts when 1,734 such FTCs were set up. The Central grant was made available for a fixed period of five years, but was later extended till 2011.However, after the lapse of the extended deadline some of the states continued with the fast courts and at the end of March 2014, at least 976 such courts were still in operation - the highest number being in Bihar with 179, followed by UP with 153, Maharashtra 92, West Bengal 85 and Madhya Pradesh 84 among the top five.Setting up of fast track courts is the responsibility of the state governments, unless there is a special scheme launched by the Centre providing grants for the same. Central funding to states for FTCs established under the 11th Finance Commission award has been discontinued with effect from April 2011.Some states have continued FTCs beyond this period with their resources. After the Nirbhaya gangrape incident of December 2012 in Delhi, the law ministry had decided to provide funds up to Rs 80 crore per annum till March 2015 on a matching contribution from states from the allocations made in the 13th Finance Commission. However, the Centre specified that this grant money will be used only for the purpose of meeting salaries of judges required for running these FTCs.After the Delhi incident, states and chief justices had resolved to set up additional FTCs relating to offences against women, children and senior citizens and marginalised sections of society.According to a status report of the law ministry, 212 FTCs have been set up so far for the purpose of fast tracking cases against women and children in 16 states.West Bengal tops the chart having set up 48 such FTCs, followed by Tamil Nadu (32), Odisha (30), Andhra Pradesh (24) and Punjab (20). Delhi has constituted six such courts exclusively, less than Jharkhand (11), Rajasthan (9) and Madhya Pradesh (9).