SC SEEKS INFO ON COURTS FOR NETAS
■ Centre was told to set up 12 courts for daily trials
● The SC on Tuesday asked the Centre and the Delhi government to file a status report on the setting up of special courts to try exclusively cases involving MPs/ MLAs and other politicians. It also wanted to know the number of pending cases in special courts.
The Supreme Court asked the Centre and the Delhi government to file a status report on the setting up of special courts to try exclusively cases involving MPs/MLAs and other politicians.
In December 2017, a bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi had directed the Centre to set up 12 special courts, which were asked to take up day-to-day trial of cases involving politicians from March 1 this year.
During the resumed hearing on Tuesday of a PIL filed by Supreme Court lawyer and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay, the bench of justices Ranjan Gogoi, Navin Sinha and K.M. Joseph also asked “how many special courts have been set up to exclusively deal with cases involving legislators after our order?”
It also wanted to know what is the number of cases pending before each of these special courts, along with the break-up of magisterial and sessions triable cases there.
It asked the Centre if it intended to set up additional special courts over and above the courts already set up.
The bench also asked the Centre as to how many of 1,581 cases involving MPs and MLAs have been disposed of within the time frame of one year as envisaged by this court.
An affidavit has been sought by August 28 with a point-wise answer to the queries.
The counsel, appearing on behalf of the Delhi High Court, informed the bench that two special courts — one sessions and one magisterial — have already been set up.
The bench asked the Registrar General of the Delhi High Court to file an affidavit on or before August 28 indicating further details in this regard, including the number of cases transferred to these two special courts.
The special courts are intended to ensure political accountability and to expedite the trial of netas with criminal track record.
The Bench had earlier observed, “This is only a beginning and not the end of it. Meanwhile “you (Centre) come up with details of pending cases across the country and we will deal with it.”
The bench had directed the Centre to allocate the funds proportionately to the States concerned for setting up of the 12 special courts so that judicial officers can be appointed and make them operational and functional by March 1, 2018.
The bench asked the High Courts concerned to ensure that the details of the cases against MPs/MLAs are collected from the respective trial courts and records are transferred to the special court which will exclusively try these cases.