States get 3 weeks on special courts for tainted politicians

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has given state governments three more weeks to say how many special courts would be required to try legislators facing trial and how many have been set up so far. The court threatened to summon the chief secretary of each state if they fail to reply within the stipulated time.

A bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi also appointed senior advocate Vijay Hansaria as amicus curiae in the case. The court was acting on a PIL filed by BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay, seeking intervention of the court to set up of special courts for speedy disposal of criminal cases pending against MPs and MLAs.

While hearing the case for the first time on December 1, 2017, a bench led by Gogoi had sought information from states and Union Territories.


Till date, only Andhra, Bengal, Bihar, Kerala, Karnataka, UP, MP and Telangana and Delhi have given information on the number of cases pending against legislators till and how many have been tried and results.

The SC had also sought to know from all states whether criminal cases were transferred to respective special courts or not. States were also told to submit data on how many special courts had been set up so far. Delhi is the only UT to submit the details. Ten states said they had constituted one special court each.

Delhi said it had set up two such special courts. The others will have to file now or else their chief secretaries will face possible punishment for contempt of court.