Supreme Court to monitor special courts to try politicians

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday made it clear that it will monitor the progress of the setting up of special courts in every state to exclusively try criminal cases pending against MPs/MLAs to ensure that the cases are decided within one year.

A Bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Navin Sinha and K.M. Joseph hearing a writ petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyaya expressed dissatisfaction over the poor response of 18 States as well as high court for not furnishing information on setting up of special courts.

The Bench took on record the affidavit filed by the Centre on Tuesday that 12 special courts had been set up in 11 states, including two in Delhi, to try MPs and MLAs facing criminal charges.

On August 21, the bench had directed the Centre to expedite setting up of special courts.to exclusively try legislators-MPs and MLAs against whom criminal cases are pending and file a status report by today specifying the number of cases pending before the already set up courts.

The Centre on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that so far 12 special courts have been set up in 11 States to try exclusively the pending 2,466 criminal cases against MPs/MLAs. The Centre said of the 12 special courts that have been set up, six are at sessions court level, five at magistrate level and as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned it has not indicated the status of the one court. The territorial jurisdiction of these courts would cover the entire State concerned. It said 2,466 cases are pending/disposed of in these courts.

It said in the remaining States where the criminal cases of MPs/MLAs are less than 65 and these cases will be tried in regular courts in fast track mode. The Centre has issued advisories to all these remaining States to dispose of the cases expeditiously. The Centre is regularly taking up the matter with the state governments and the High Courts.

The Centre said despite its constant efforts there are still some High Courts and State governments who have not responded with the requisite information and data in time. Therefore the information, which is being presented, is not complete, the affidavit pointed out. The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on October 12.