SC clears 12 special courts to try cases against politicians

SC clears 12 special courts to try cases against politicians

Context

The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave the green signal for the Centre’s scheme to set up 12 fast track courts to exclusively prosecute and dispose of 1,581 criminal cases pending against Members of Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies within a year.

Allocation of funds

• A Bench of Justices directed the Centre to forthwith allocate ₹7.8 crore to the States for setting up such courts.
• The Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, has granted in-principle approval to the said allocation

Timeline

The States shall, in consultation with the High Courts concerned, make the courts operational by March 1, 2018

Still not enough

PIL petitioner and Supreme Court advocate Ashwini Upadhyay said 12 courts were not enough to try 1,581 cases and ₹7.8 crore was too little to prosecute “criminal” politicians.

But Its’ a start

To this, Justice Gogoi responded that 12 courts are not the end of it. But let them start. It is very easy to blame, but to start something is difficult

Declared cases

The 1,581 criminal cases were declared by politicians in their nominations in the 2014 general elections.

Cases to be clubbed together

• The scheme proposes to club the cases of several politicians together and have one court hear them
• This way, the Bench expected a special court to finish at least 100 cases a year. 

Trace out pending cases

The Supreme Court directed the High Courts, acting through the various trial courts, to trace out from the case records the criminal cases pending against politicians and transfer them to the special courts concerned for adjudication.

 At rudimentary stage

The Supreme Court said the Centre’s scheme was “rudimentary” at this stage, but it would be open for modifications as and when the situation arises.

The Case

The order comes on a petition filed by Mr. Upadhyay for a life ban on convicted politicians from contesting elections

Next Hearing

The court said it would consider the issue in the next hearing in March.