New Delhi, April 22: The Centre is on course to another round of fast-track clashes with the judiciary.

The parliamentary standing committee on law and justice has recommended that states should fund fast-track courts and there would be no additional central allocation beyond March 31 this year.

The Supreme Court had in a March-end order extended the term of the FTCs till April 30 and asked the Centre to reply if it could fund the courts without running into financial difficulty. If it could not, appropriate orders would be issued to ensure the FTCs continued to function, it had said.

The controversy had arisen after the 12th Finance Commission failed to allocate any funds for the FTCs. The courts were set up with an initial release of Rs 509 crore by the 11th Finance Commission.

Government sources said that when the case resumes next week, the parliamentary committee report would be submitted before court, setting the stage for a confrontation.

The report has said that as the Centre would not be able to cough up the funds, the justice department should ?vigorously? pursue the issue with the finance ministry and the planning commission and till a scheme was finalised, persuade states to fund the FTCs.

The justice department has come in for flak in the report of the committee headed by Congress MP E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan. It has said that the department should have either approached the finance ministry with a non-plan scheme or the Planning Commission for a plan scheme for funding of the FTCs in advance.

?On the contrary, the justice department kept waiting for the recommendation of the 12th Finance Commission which ultimately resulted in the present crisis,? the report said.

Non-allocation of funds for the FTCs was a ?sad state of affairs?, it added, noting the Supreme Court had appreciated the performance of the courts.

The report said ?the society has become more aware, the law, the image of the court system and the administration of justice have suffered a loss of public confidence?. This was all the more reason why ?grey areas? confronting the judiciary should be given prompt attention.

Last September, Union law minister Hans Raj Bharadwaj had said Rs 1,000 crore would be pumped in for modernisation of lower courts and the FTCs. The conference of chief ministers and chief justices had then favoured continuation of the FTCs for speedy disposal of cases.

The Supreme Court had rooted for them saying ?undertrials? right to speedy justice is equal to right to life?.