Form of words:
New Delhi: Inadequate number of special courts and judicial officers, non-appearance of the accused, and stay orders by the high courts are the main reasons for the high number of pending cases against sitting and former Members of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies. This has been revealed in the report submitted by the amicus curiae to the Supreme Court.
Although video-conferencing facilities are now available in special courts in most states, the report states that the accused MLAs still refuse to appear before them.
According to the report, there are around 3,012 cases pending in the courts against the MLAs, but this does not include the numbers in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The report, accessed by ThePrint, states that hundreds are stuck at the stage of the accused’s appearance, without which the trial cannot begin.
The report, submitted last week before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, is the latest in a series of reports put together by senior advocate Vijay Hansaria and advocate Sneha Kalita with data obtained from high courts across the country.
The court is hearing a plea filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, seeking a direction to restrain the convicted MLAs and MPs from contesting elections for life.
‘Some special courts’
In December 2017, the Supreme Court ordered that special courts be set up across the country to fast-track long-pending cases against MPs.
However, in three states – Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and West Bengal – there is only one special court. Exists for the entire state, the report says.
In the section on Madhya Pradesh, the report states that the High Court had proposed setting up three more courts last year, but none of these have come up so far.
At the same time, the burden on the existing officers is exceeding their capacity due to the small number of judicial officers to hear these cases, the report said.
In Karnataka, Nyaya Mitra notes, there are only two special courts and both are presided over by the same judicial officer. He currently has 155 cases.
The apex court in a post-submission order refrained from issuing any direction in this regard, but it reminded all high courts of their responsibility to set up an adequate number of special courts.
‘Excessive delays and stagnation’
Another reason for such high pendency, the report shows, is “extreme delay” in the conduct of tests. It said that at least 600 cases are still pending at the stage of appearance of the accused.
For example, in Kerala, 232 cases out of 381 are pending because of this. This number is 178 out of 362 in Odisha and 103 out of 324 in Madhya Pradesh.
In West Bengal, at least seven cases are more than a decade old, of which three are more than 20 years old. A case under the stringent-but-now-defunct Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act filed in Gujarat in 1999 is still in the stage of framing of charges.
The report also noted that, in many cases, proceedings by the accused have been stayed by the High Court or the Supreme Court. In such cases, it suggests that the High Courts may be requested to hear the matter on their own or may direct the lower court to proceed with the hearing notwithstanding the stay of the proceedings after six months, unless that the moratorium is not extended.
‘Fix the responsibility on the district police chief’
For all those cases where the accused is yet to appear in the court, the amicus curiae suggests that personal responsibility may be fixed on the Superintendent of Police of the district concerned to ensure his presence in the special court.
If they do not appear within two weeks, the bail granted to them should be automatically canceled and the accused should be taken into custody.
For the four states that have more than 1,000 cases between them, the amicus curiae suggests that the Supreme Court may direct the concerned High Courts to issue directions to conduct day-to-day trials in pending cases.
Tushar Kohli is a final year student at Army Institute of Law, Mohali and is doing an internship at ThePrint
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
Read also: Don’t blame the courts of India only, it’s the police who can’t solve criminal cases in time
subscribe our channel youtube And Wire
Why is the news media in crisis and how can you fix it?
India needs free, unbiased, non-hyphenated and questionable journalism even more as it is facing many crises.
But the news media itself is in trouble. There have been brutal layoffs and pay-cuts. The best of journalism are shrinking, yielding to raw prime-time spectacle.
ThePrint has the best young journalists, columnists and editors to work for it. Smart and thinking people like you will have to pay the price for maintaining this quality of journalism. Whether you live in India or abroad, you can Here.