Supreme Court pulls up govt for not giving data on trial of tainted netas

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday pulled up the central government for failing to provide data sought by it on the number of special courts set up to fast-track cases against elected lawmakers.

The top court had on December 14, 2017 directed the government to set up fasttrack courts in a bid to ensure that elected members are either acquitted honourably or convicted and stay out of the political process under the disqualification laws.

Under existing scheme of things, politicians who are convicted for two years or more have to stay out of the electoral fray for a limited period unless they get a stay of the conviction from an appellate court. The central government has since set up a few courts — initially, it established 12 special courts in 11 states with an estimated annual expenditure of Rs 7.80 crore.


The top court had then sought data on the number of trials that had been conducted and the number of politicians convicted so far to assess the performance of the mechanism.

On Thursday, the law ministry in an affidavit said it had sent repeated reminders to the authorities to hand over the data — sort of deflecting the blame on to the high courts and state governments.

The court had also sought information on the type of cases pending before the fast-track courts and if any more courts were required to deal with the problem. According to the affidavit, some states had said there was no requirement of such courts in their territories.

The bench, led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, observed that the central government was unprepared and listed the case for hearing again next Wednesday.

“The Union is unprepared,” Justice Gogoi said, demanding answers from the junior counsel arguing the matter.