From June, the Bombay High Court will monitor the progress of trials in instances involving MPs and MLAs on a fortnightly basis

The Bombay High Court announced on Wednesday that it will keep a district-by-district eye on the trial of sitting and former  Members of Parliament (MP) and Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA). According to Supreme Court directions in a 2016 petition filed by lawyer and BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking the establishment of special courts to try criminal cases against legislators, a special bench consisting of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice SK Shinde has been formed to review the progress of the trials against legislators.

 

From June onwards, the special court would meet biweekly to evaluate the status of such outstanding cases district by district, according to CJ Datta. The High Court has also instructed Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni to tell the court of the district with the highest number of pending cases so that monitoring of their progress can begin.

 

The court stated that it intends to examine the frequency of trial dates and the number of adjournments in the cases. Several lawsuits remain blocked, according to Kumbhakoni, due to stays imposed by high courts. He then asked the court to issue an order instructing all High Court benches to reconsider their respective orders of stay on criminal cases.

 

As a division bench, the judges joked that they couldn't give orders to co-ordinate benches. Despite the fact that it is a special bench, it only has two judges and so cannot give orders to other division benches. The court said on Wednesday that in cases where the high court had stayed the trial, the prosecutor could approach the concerned bench to have the stay lifted. The Supreme Court's orders were intended to speed up trials and prevent them from being interrupted, according to the High Court. The case has been adjourned till June by the HC.

 

 

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