Panchkula, Oct. 23 -- Come November 3 and the Panchkula district court will have a dedicated fast-track special court to exclusively hear offences under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. With this, trials in POCSO cases are expected to proceed at a faster pace and ensure quicker justice for minor victims. At present, POCSO cases are handled by a single court of additional sessions judge, which also deals with other serious offences such as murder, cases under the Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribe Act, Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, and corruption cases. On an average, the court hears eight to 10 cases related to crimes against women each day. Manish Dua, who is currently the additional district and sessions judge and officer on special duty (vigilance) at the Punjab and Haryana high court, will join the Panchkula court as an additional district and sessions judge to preside over the new fast track special court. A senior public prosecutor from the Panchkula court informed that around 230 POCSO-related cases are currently pending. These include not only sessions trials but also bail applications and few criminal miscellaneous petitions. In addition to this, the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) in Panchkula has 13 pending POCSO cases that were registered between 2022 and 2025. Over the past 10 years, the sessions courts in Panchkula have concluded 147 POCSO-related trials, while the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) has completed 50 such trials during the same period. District attorney (DA) at Panchkula Court, Manoj Vashisth, welcomed the move, "For child victims of sexual crimes, this may come as some relief. When the case drags on for years, they never get to fully recover from the trauma. Having a dedicated court will help bring down the pendency and provide quick justice to child victims." Currently, there are four courts of additional district and sessions judge (ADSJ) at the Panchkula Court (including a special CBI court) and one court of district and sessions judge. With the establishment of the special POCSO court, the number of ADSJ courts will increase to five. The oldest sessions trial, pending under the POCSO Act (Section 4), also includes various sections of the IPC related to kidnapping, wrongful confinement, rape, extortion, criminal intimidation, etc will come up for hearing this month. The case was registered in 2017. The prosecution evidence began in August 2018 and concluded in July 2021. Similarly, defence evidence began in August 2021 and continued until March 2022. Since then, the case status has been "awaiting further orders", and it is now scheduled to be heard this month....