A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice NV Ramana on Tuesday; September 6th, 2020 asked the center to submit all the details regarding the pending criminal cases against legislators across the country. The bench observed that various High Courts have been asking for video conferencing facilities in order to dispose of the pending criminal cases.
The apex court will supply a copy of the tentative data points stipulating fixing various modalities to various High Courts in the country so that the Judges will be able to collate various information. Justice NV Ramana said that “The matters which are pending are hanging on the head of the people; you must take a final call and give us. You keep saying we are willing and we want to expedite….” The bench was also concerned in serious matters that police in many cases was not enforcing law and order as they were afraid of the legislators. The Solicitor General suggested in this context that the apex court should issue a direction to the state DGPs so as to ensure timely summons etc.
In a PIL filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking the speedy disposal of all the criminal cases against Member of Parliament and against Member of Legislative Assembly where the HC were ordered across the country to compile a list of criminal cases against the legislators, the Amicus Curie acted upon it. The apex court was also informed that the cases against the legislators have increased and stood at 4859 cases across the country.
It said that the disposal rate of cases depends upon the geography of the court. Justice Ramana said that there is no court which gave any record to prove it and also he said that the apex court’s bench has prepared a tentative datasheet which states the name of HC, no. of cases pending, current no. of special courts available and requirement of infrastructure etc. in order to have the clarity of the problem. The Centre asked more time and said that the report from various stakeholders is still to come. Before on September 9th, 2020 the apex court was informed that criminal cases pending against legislators are 4442 in number and also there are 2556 accused persons amongst the sitting legislators.
