By IANS,
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Wednesday issued notice to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) asking why it was not appointing public prosecutors in the capital.
Of the 215 posts for public prosecutors in Delhi, 44 are lying vacant.
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Manmohan asked the UPSC to file a reply by July 21.
The court direction came after the Delhi government submitted that it had sent a request to the UPSC June 24 to appoint public prosecutors but it failed to do so.
Last year, the high court had taken suo motu cognizance of a letter written to it by some undertrial prisoners.
They said due to the delay in the trial, some accused have to spend more time in jail than the prescribed sentence for the offences under which they were booked.
During the course of the hearing, it came to the court’s notice that trials were taking a long time to complete due to the shortge of prosecutors.
Earlier, the court directed the government to submit a report on the working conditions of the prosecutors.
The direction came after an association of public prosecutors filed an application and pointed out that due to bad working conditions, many of them had quit the job.