Haryana Rape Cases Pile Up As Govt Sends Prosecutors To Roadways
Haryana rape cases: Of 644 sanctioned Law Officer posts in Haryana, 285 have been deputed to non-legal government departments — leaving district courts paralysed. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has had enough.
Arvind Chhabra
Chandigarh, May 19
In the Sessions Division of Sirsa, 595 survivors of rape and child sexual abuse are waiting. Their cases — crimes against the most vulnerable — sit in queue because there are not enough government lawyers to prosecute them. Alongside them wait thousands more ensnared in drug cases under the NDPS Act, many of them undertrials. The courts are overwhelmed. But the prosecutors who should be fighting these cases are elsewhere — managing paperwork at Haryana Roadways, working in corporations, and staffing administrative offices that have nothing to do with law.
This is not an accident or an oversight. It is state policy — repeatedly renewed, paper-trailed, and officially stamped. And the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in a sharply worded order decided it had seen enough.
Haryana rape cases, drug cases: The Inspection That Started It
The case traces to a routine inspection. In March this year, Administrative Judge Harkesh Manuja visited the Sirsa Sessions Division and found a situation that demanded attention. Against 22 judicial officers working there, the strength of Government Pleaders was only 12 — a shortfall that was directly causing delays in case disposal. But that wasn’t the only problem he found.
Two of the existing 12 law officers –Manmohan Singh Jagat and Anterdeep Singh, both Assistant District Attorneys technically posted to the Sirsa District Attorney’s office — were not actually in Sirsa at all. One had been deputed to the office of the General Manager, Haryana Roadways, Karnal. The other had been sent to the District Attorney’s office in Ambala. Both were drawing their salaries from Sirsa while doing work elsewhere entirely.
Administrative Judge Harkesh Manuja, Sirsa, wrote, “The persistent shortage of Public Prosecutors has been causing great hindrance in the administration of justice.”
He wrote up his findings and sent them directly to Chief Justice Sheel Nagu. The Chief Justice directed that the note be treated as a Suo Motu Public Interest Petition and placed before an appropriate bench.
The Paper Trail of Abdication
The court record in this case contains, almost unbelievably, the actual government orders authorising both deputation extensions — documents that prove the state knew exactly what it was doing.
Documented deputation extensions filed before the court
- Manmohan Singh Jagat — ADA, Sirsa. Deputed to GM, Haryana Roadways, Karnal. Extension ordered by Haryana Home Department in March 2026 — for a further 180 days.
- Anterdeep Singh — ADA, Sirsa. Deputed to District Attorney, Ambala. Extension ordered by Haryana Home Department in February 2026 — for six months.
- Both signed by Sudhir Rajpal, Additional Chief Secretary, Haryana Home Department.
The Roadways extension was signed in March— the same month the inspection that triggered this PIL took place. Neither order has a legal or emergency justification. They are routine administrative transfers that treat law officers as general-purpose government employees available for deployment wherever the bureaucracy needs a body.
A Statewide Crisis Hiding in the Open
When the matter came before a bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sanjiv Berry, the State of Haryana filed an affidavit — sworn by Bharat Bhushan, Joint Secretary, Home and Administration of Justice Department. The numbers in it were staggering, and they revealed that Sirsa was not an exception. It was representative.
Of 644 sanctioned posts of Law Officers across Haryana, 362 are actually working in courts representing the state. The other 285 have been deputed to “other departments” — boards, corporations, and government offices — for work that has nothing to do with legal proceedings or the courts they are supposed to serve. In effect, Haryana has quietly diverted nearly half its prosecution machinery to serve administrative convenience.
The affidavit was so poorly constituted that the State’s own counsel sought permission to withdraw it and file a proper one. The Court allowed the withdrawal — but refused to let the state off the cost of having wasted the Court’s time. Rs. 20,000 was imposed, to be paid to the Poor Patient Welfare Fund at PGIMER, Chandigarh.
The Order: Recall All 285. In One Week.
Haryana rape cases and drugs cases: Haryana rape cases and drugs casesBy way of writ of mandamus, the Court directed the State of Haryana to terminate the deputation of all 285 District Attorneys, Deputy District Attorneys and Assistant District Attorneys posted on deputation to other departments, boards and corporations — and post them to undertake Court work in all 23 districts of Haryana — within a period of one week, with compliance to be reported.
The Court also directed the State to file an affidavit disclosing the total sanctioned strength of the three cadres, the present incumbency, vacancy position, and what steps have been taken to fill those vacancies.
What the Delay Really Means
Haryana rape cases and drugs cases: Behind the legalese of “pendency” and “shortage of Public Prosecutors” are real people in real distress. In Sirsa’s courts, the 595 rape and POCSO cases represent survivors — overwhelmingly women and children — who filed complaints, went through the trauma of examination, and were promised that the state would prosecute their attackers. Years on, their cases sit because the person who is supposed to speak for the state in court is managing a Roadways office in Karnal.
The 3,977 pending NDPS cases are a different kind of human story. Many of those accused are undertrials — people who have not been convicted of anything — who remain in custody month after month, sometimes year after year, because the system cannot move their cases fast enough to either try or acquit them. An undertrial in a delayed NDPS matter may spend more time in jail awaiting trial than the sentence for the offence itself.
This is the real cost of sending prosecutors to Roadways.
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