Rahul Gandhi targets Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad over pendency of cases in courts

NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi slammed union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad saying instead of addressing the huge pendency of cases in courts, the BJP leader was busy peddling fake news.

Prasad has been leading the BJP charge against the Congress and Rahul while accusing them of having had links with the controversial data firm Cambridge Analytica. The Congress rebuffed the charge saying it was fabricated.

Rahul reeled out data related to pending court cases and shortage of judges to dispose them off saying the law minister was overlooking the big problems under his domain.

“Legal system collapsing under pending cases. Supreme Court 55,000 +, High Court 37 Lakh +, Lower Courts 2.6 Crore +. Yet, a staggering 400 High Court and 6,000 lower court judges not appointed, while law minister preoccupied peddling fake news,” Rahul tweeted.

The Congress chief charged the centre with meddling in judiciary.

“Justice K M Joseph, overturned President’s rule in Uttarakhand in 2016. When his name was proposed for the Supreme Court, Modi ji‘s ego was hurt. Approval of over 100 judges, cleared for the Supreme Court and various High Courts are now on hold,” he further tweeted.

Describing it as a vicious cycle, party spokesperson Tom Vadakkan said the government should show the complete picture to the people.

“Why are the cases pending because you do not have judicial officers and why do not you have judicial officers because you are not appointing them because they do not look at the world view from your point? This is a very serious business and that has to be addressed,” he said.

Vadakkan further said only the Chief Justice had the authority to block and unblock judicial appointments.

“When appointments are made, you stop them and you do not appoint people who do not agree to your version of the world view and if that happens naturally, appointments fail, naturally cases will fall back and this is the pendency,” he said.