Siliguri, Nov. 21: Siliguri court will have two more fast-track courts by the end of December for speedy disposal of pending cases.

This was announced today at a high-level meeting participated by top judicial officers and district administrators.

“We have received an order from the high court to start two new fast-track courts in Siliguri court compound,” said Darjeeling district and sessions judge Tapash Kumar Giri.

“At the meeting held today, it was said that the courts would be set up at the earliest. Both courts will be housed in the court building itself. We are now working towards setting up adequate infrastructure. Work is on and we are hopeful that we will be able to start proceedings in the new courts by the end of December,” Giri added.

He said the new courts would go a long way in clearing the backlog that had been created due to the piling up of cases in the last few years. He, however, refused to divulge the extent of the backlog or the number of cases pending with the sessions court.

With the addition of two new courts, there will be three fast-track courts in Siliguri court. The first one was set up in March this year. At present, there are four sessions courts, including the fast-track court.

Chief judicial magistrate Shiva Prasad Chattopadhyay, Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad sabhadhipati Anil Saha and Siliguri subdivisional officer Gopal Lama were present at today’s meeting.

It has been reported that the state government is in a hurry to set up 60 fast-track courts in less than two months to meet the Supreme Court’s December 31-deadline.

The Centre had declared that there must be at least one fast-track court in every district and each court should dispose of 18 sessions cases each month.

Two years ago, the Centre had announced a project to establish 1,734 fast-track courts across the country to speed up sessions trials, so that undertrials did not have to languish long in jail without a hearing.