Madras High Court: Special Courts designated to hear MPs/MLAs will hear cases against them and not those filed by them

Madras High Court: Special Courts designated to hear MPs/MLAs will hear cases against them and not those filed by them

The Madras High Court has ordered that Special Benches, which are established in Courts to expeditiously hear criminal cases pertaining to Members of Parliament or Members of the Legislative Assembly (MPs or MLAs) will only hear cases filed against them and not cases filed by them.

The bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy passed the order in a suo moto petition registered by the High Court for monitoring pending criminal cases against MPs and MLAs in the trial courts and the High Court to ensure that the directives given by the Supreme Court are fully complied with.

The Supreme Court had issued directions on the issue in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay for the decriminalisation of politics and the expeditious disposal of cases involving legislators.

The Madras High Court observed that it is necessary to constitute an appropriate Committee at the High Court level to look into complaints against legislators and resultant cases. The Court also expressed concern over the fact that legislators were akin to delay trials given their litigative resourcefulness.

The matter will be taken up next in June 2021.