Supreme Court
More special courts are needed to try criminal cases involving MPs and MLAs, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday, adding that the 11 courts that have been established are “grossly inadequate” in terms of numbers to fulfill the task.
“The information now available is enough to show that 11 courts is grossly inadequate. Now we will tell you where to set up the courts,” a bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph said after perusing an affidavit filed by the Centre.
Referring to the data provided in the affidavit, Justice Gogoi noted that while two courts had been established for Delhi, which had 38 cases, only one court had been set up for Kerala that had over 200 cases. “One court can’t be enough” to hear so many matters, he said.
“So tell us when will you set up additional courts,” the bench asked Additional Solicitor General Atmaram Nadkarni, who appeared for the Centre. Nadkarni replied that it was the states that had to establish these courts in consultation with the respective High Courts and the Centre would only provided the funds. If the states needed more courts, they had to come forward with proposals, he said.
When the CJI said that “it is obvious that states will not say we want special courts”, Nadkarni said he would take instructions from the government, as funding is required for setting up the new courts. The court was also told that 11 states and three High Court were yet to furnish information on the status of the criminal cases against lawmakers in their respective jurisdictions.
It gave four more weeks to the states and High Courts to respond, and said the Chief Secretary for the respective state and Registrar General of the respective High Courts will be held liable if the order was not complied with.
The bench asked senior advocate Vijay Hansaria to prepare a report on the number of such cases pending in each state or High Court and submit it to the court. On the basis of this report, the Centre will decide how many more special courts were required, the court said.