The Supreme Court slammed the Central government on Thursday for failing to provide a complete list of the number of criminal cases against the MPs and MLAs, despite the direction of the apex court, reported The Wire.
BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay has filed a PIL in the apex court demanding that the convicted politicians should be permanently banned from electoral politics, LiveLaw reported.
Upadhyay has asked in his petition for the establishment of special courts to promptly try criminal cases against the lawmakers and politicians. The apex court has directed the Centre to file its response on September 5 when the next hearing will take place.
The bench constituting of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Navin Sinha and K.M. Joseph said, “The government is compelling us to pass certain orders which we do not want at this stage. The union of India is unprepared. We express our anguish.”
Economic Times report claims that the affidavit filed by the Central government did not contain detailed information regarding the pending cases against the MPs and MLAs in the fast-track courts already established.
The affidavit read, “This department is regularly taking up the matter with the authorities concerned for furnishing the information regarding the cases transferred/ disposed/ pending in the said courts.”
In the hearing held on November 1, 2017, the SC had directed the Central government to set up special fast-track courts, so that the criminal cases against the lawmakers and politicians can be put on trial quickly and completed in one year. It has also ordered the Modi government to set up 12 special courts to try 1,581 criminal cases pending against MPs and MLAs, reported Zee News.
In the most recent hearing held on August 21, the top court had asked the Centre to file a status report by August 28 including the number of pending criminal cases against the MLAs and MPs before the already established special courts.
According to An Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) report, around 35 per cent Indian chief ministers have been accused of criminal offences. Their report also claimed that 184 of the 542 winners of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections analysed had declared criminal cases against them.
The Wire quoted the ADR report which said, “97 (35%) out of 281 winners analysed from BJP, 8 (18%) out of 44 winners from INC, 6 (16%) out of 37 winners from AIADMK, 15 (83%) out of 18 winners from Shiv Sena and 7 (21%) out of 34 winners fielded by AITC have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.”