HYDERABAD: Nearly two years into a direction from the Supreme Court to establish a special court for the trial of criminal cases relating to elected MPs and MLAs, and to dispose-off theses cases within a year, the orders are not being implemented in the State for multiple reasons.
Though the government accorded sanction for establishment of the special court in February 2018 and sanctioned 30 members as supporting staff the next month, there is no progress in the trial of cases booked against MLAs and MPs.
According to the Forum for Good Governance (FCG), which received information through RTI petitions, about 96 cases from 14 districts (from where information is received) are pending before the special court. This information was provided by the chief administrative officer of the special courts.
In this regard, the FGG on Wednesday requested Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to intervene and issue instructions to the chief secretary to immediately allot the required budget, appoint 30 supporting staff, a full-time Judge and transfer pending cases from the remaining 19 districts to the special court at Nampally.
According to M Padmanabha Reddy, Secretary, FGC, reasons for non-functioning of the special court are lack of a permanent Judge, no supporting staff, and no budget in the past one and half years. “Out of the 33 districts, only 14 have transferred pending cases against MLAs and MPs to a special court, while the rest of 19 districts are yet to transfer,” said Reddy.
A representation in this regard was submitted to the chief secretary in September 2018. Reddy said that most of the cases are a decade old and should be brought to their logical conclusion before the next election so that people reject those candidates that have criminal records.
The Supreme Court on December 14, 2017 had directed the state governments to establish a special court for the trial of criminal cases relating to elected MPs and MLAs and to dispose-off theses cases within a year.