Faster is not fairer in POCSO case clearance numbers

Faster is not fairer in POCSO case clearance numbers

India crossed a much-publicised milestone in 2025 — fast track special courts cleared more child sexual offence cases than registered that year under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. They recorded a 109% disposal rate and closed 87,754 cases against the 80,320 registered.

Commentaries have hailed this as a turning point in the fight against child sexual abuse, by suggesting that courts have finally broken the backlog. However, new data and field reports point to a different tipping point where disposals rise but convictions fall and thousands of children remain stuck in long trials with little support.

The POCSO Act, passed in 2012, was designed as a special law because earlier provisions on rape and molestation under the Indian Penal Code and women’s protection laws failed to recognise the particular nature of offences against children. POCSO promised child-friendly procedures, time-bound trials and a system that would see and hear children differently from adult survivors.

More courts but convictions fall short

India now runs 773 fast track special courts, 400 of them designated for POCSO cases. Fast track special courts started in October 2019 with ₹1,952 crore from the Nirbhaya Fund after orders by the Supreme Court of India. And these courts cleared 3,50,685 cases by September 2025. These courts handle 9.51 cases a month compared to 3.26 in regular courts. Even so, convictions and child support still fall short.

Convictions have actually gone down from 35% back in 2019 to 29% across the country by 2023. If we take the baseline figure of 35% in 2019, a 90% disposal rate in 2023 would mean that conviction should have risen to 45%. But it is 29% instead, which is 16 points lower and 36% short of what should be expected. The bottom line is that clearing cases faster means weaker convictions, not better justice. Fast track courts average just 19%. In a number of States, there are more accused walking free than being put behind bars. Tens of thousands of cases drag on for years.

Children who testify in POCSO cases have particular needs that go beyond quick hearings and formal compliance with the law. They require trained support persons, sensitive police and lawyers, and child welfare committees that can secure compensation and care while the trial is ongoing, not years later. When these protections remain on paper, higher disposal rates coexist with fragile convictions, thin reparations and children who leave the system more harmed than healed.

But the trend reveals a darker truth (Table):

Faster trials have not meant fairer verdicts. Investigations remain hurried, charge sheets stay incomplete and forensic reports are delayed, especially in overcrowded courts across Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.

The enforcement gap also extends to support persons appointed under Section 39 of the POCSO Act, mandated by the Supreme Court in 2021 in all cases, and detailed in the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights 2024 guidelines. The support persons guide children through the long and complex justice-seeking process but as several States have still to empanel them, this results in cases collapsing pre-trial. Practical fixes exist. Right to Information (RTI)-based tracking of support persons, strict lab-report deadlines, case bundling for older files and quarterly conviction audits to focus attention on weak States. In Madhya Pradesh, special courts that sped up forensics and testimony have secured convictions where similar cases elsewhere failed.

PLVs, the missing first line of defence

The Supreme Court, in December 2025, directed para-legal volunteers (PLV) to be appointed at every police station for POCSO cases. The status report highlights gaps. Andhra Pradesh, for instance, has PLVs in 42 of 919 stations, while Tamil Nadu has none across 1,577. Without PLVs, families walk into police stations alone, scared, pressured and ignored. In the Unnao rape case (Uttar Pradesh), several news reports pointed to the initial reluctance by the police to register the case, as it sat on her first information report (FIR) for a few weeks while threatening her family to drop it. In Lalitpur (Uttar Pradesh) in 2022, a 13-year-old gang-rape survivor was assaulted again at the police station and the FIR was registered only after the intervention of a non-governmental organisation. The presence of a PLV could have stopped the threats, ensured the filing of the FIR the same day and protection of the evidence and the family.

There have been occasions when courts have acquitted the accused when they offered to marry the survivors once they turned adult. The higher judiciary has let off convicts citing ‘happy marriage’ despite Section 6 convictions against the perpetrator. Such rulings push vulnerable girls into life-long ties with their abusers.

Courts can order interim compensation at any stage, particularly where schooling or health is at risk, but most prefer to wait for final verdicts. By then the harm done to a child’s education and family income is often irreversible. Many survivors receive the first instalment years after a judgment, which has seen High Courts pulling up legal aid authorities repeatedly for delays. The Vidhi Centre notes that in such instances, these payments lose their purpose.

Marginalised families borrow money for travel and lawyers. And they often spend more on survival than what state relief provides. Daily wage families lose work for hearings and mothers leave jobs in order to attend court. Speed without support leaves children more broken than justice served.

New data and field reports show that thousands of children and their families still face long trials with little support