New Delhi
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked Patna and Kerala high courts to assign criminal cases involving former and sitting lawmakers to as many courts as considered “expedient” so as to speed up disposal of cases against ‘netas’.

“This, according to us, would be a more effective step instead of concentrating all the cases involving former and sitting legislators in a Special Court(s) in the district,” said a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi. Noting that at this stage the order should be applicable only to Bihar and Kerala, the Bench sought compliance reports from Patna and Kerala HCs by December 14, the next date of hearing.

The order came after Amicus Curiae Vijay Hansaria submitted his report which said there were 4,122 criminal cases pending, some of them for more than three decades, against present and former Members of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies. Hansaria had suggested that each district should have one Sessions and one Magistrate court designated as Special Court.

Acting on a PIL filed by Delhi BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, the Supreme Court had in December last year ordered the Centre to set up 12 special courts to exclusively try cases involving politicians. It had said the issue of imposing a life ban on convicted politicians would be taken up for later.

The Bench asked high courts of Patna and Kerala to send back cases from special courts, which were already constituted, to jurisdictional district courts.

It had sought detailed data on the pending criminal cases against the present and former legislators from the states and various high courts so as to enable the setting up of adequate number of special courts for expedited trial in these cases.

Hansaria has filed a compilation of data received from states and high courts, which revealed that 4,122 criminal cases were pending against sitting and former lawmakers across India. Out of the total 4,122 cases, 2,324 cases pending against sitting MPs, MLAs and 1,675 cases pending against former MPs, MLAs.