Criminal Cases Against MPs/MLAs: Infrastructure In Place, Special Courts To Dispose Of Cases Quickly: Madras High Court Closes Suo Moto Plea
The Madras High Court last week directed the Special Courts hearing pending criminal cases against the MLAs and MPs to dispose of the cases as quickly as possible and with this direction, the Suo Moto Plea was closed.The bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy was hearing a petition wherein the Court had taken suo moto cognizance for monitoring the progress...
The Madras High Court last week directed the Special Courts hearing pending criminal cases against the MLAs and MPs to dispose of the cases as quickly as possible and with this direction, the Suo Moto Plea was closed.
The bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy was hearing a petition wherein the Court had taken suo moto cognizance for monitoring the progress of pending criminal cases against state MPs and MLAs in the trial courts and High Court for ensuring full compliance with the directions of the Apex Court in as provided in Ashiwini Kumar Upadhyay & Ors. v. Union of India (2020).
The suo motu proceedings were initiated pursuant to orders passed by the Supreme Court requiring the High Court to monitor criminal cases against Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assembly.
The court noted the submission of the High Court administration that now all vacancies have been filled up, the infrastructure has been put in place and territorial jurisdictions demarcated, the matter may have served its purpose.
Further, the Court directed thus:
"Since the Benches have been set up and infrastructure and other aspects are in place, the suo motu proceedings need not be continued any further, with an observation that all Courts hearing the criminal cases should deal with them as expeditiously as the business of that Court would permit and ensure that the matters are brought to a logical conclusion without undue delay."
Background
The High Court vide order dated 01.12.2020 had registered a suo moto writ petition in view of the directions given in the orders passed by the Supreme Court in Ashiwini Kumar Upadhyay case wherein the Court observed that each high court must assign pending criminal cases against MPs and MLAs to sessions and magisterial courts so as to expedite their disposal.
Pursuant to the directions of the Apex Court, the matter was placed before the Criminal Rules Committee, which is an advisory arm to the Supreme Court, a three member committee, wherein a report was submitted on 05.10.2020. in furtherance of the same, the Supreme Court vide order dated 06.10.2020 directed that:
"After perusing the materials placed on record, we are of the opinion that further information from the High Courts is required to provide more with respect to the number of Special Courts required for expeditious disposal of pending criminal cases against sitting or former legislators (MPs and MLAs). With an objective of collating uniform data, we have annexed a tentative format along with this order. The High Courts are directed to furnish details according to the annexed format by 19.10.2020, with the liberty to provide additional information if necessary, to the Secretary General of this Court."
Read Order