Over 4,000 criminal cases pending against present and former MPs, MLAs: SC

The Supreme Court Tuesday asked Bihar and Kerala to set up special courts in each of their districts for the trial of pending criminal cases against present and former MPs and MLAs.

Earlier in the day, the top court was informed that there were 4,122 criminal cases pending, some for over three decades, against present and former members of Parliament and legislative assemblies.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph passed the directions for setting up special courts in every district of the two states and also sought compliance reports from the Patna and Kerala high courts by December 14.


The apex court directed the high courts to send back cases from special courts, which were already constituted, to jurisdictional district courts.

The Supreme Court has given the liberty of constituting as many courts as required in the districts of these two states for trial of cases against the legislators.

The apex court also said the special courts would take up life term cases on a priority while hearing pending matters against MPs and MLAs.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by lawyer and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay seeking a life time ban on politicians convicted in criminal cases besides the setting up of special courts to expeditiously try cases involving elected representatives.

The apex court had sought detailed data on the pending criminal cases against the present and former legislators from the states and various high courts so as to enable the setting up of adequate number of special courts for expedited trial in these cases.

Senior advocate Vijay Hansaria who is assisting the court as amicus curiae in the matter along with advocate Sneha Kalita had filed the data received from states and high courts and submitted it to the apex court.