Context :
One India / 11
Sept 2020 :
Should
convicted politicians be barred for life from contesting polls asks SC
Extract :
Ø The court was hearing a case to ensure
speedy trials in 4,442 criminal cases pending against former and sitting MPs and
MLAs across states. The court asked the centre to respond to a new prayer
seeking a life ban on politicians convicted of heinous
offences from contesting elections
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Business Line /
12 Sept 2020
New norms
for publishing candidates’ criminal record
Extract
:
Ø The candidates and political parties will have to publish
details of contestants’ criminal antecedents in newspapers
and on television first within the first four days of the last date of
withdrawal of nominations, the Election Commission decided at a meeting here on
Friday.
Ø In a statement the Commission said that the second publicity for criminal
antecedents has to be within five to eight days of the last date of withdrawal
of nominations while the third publicity should be from the ninth day till the
last day of campaigning, which happens two days before voting day.
====================================================
Times of India / 17 Sept
2020
SC direction to expedite trial against legislators is welcome
: Govt
Extract :
With 4,442 cases pending
against sitting and former MPs and MLAs, the Union government on Wednesday told
the Supreme Court that it
would welcome any direction from the court for speeding up the trials in
the cases pending for years against elected representatives.
=========================================================
Times
of India / 18 Sept 2020
Send plan within a week to speed up trials of lawmakers: SC
Extract :
Ø Setting off alarm bells for chief ministers,
MPs and MLAs against whom trials in criminal cases have been pending for years,
the Supreme Court , on Thursday asked HCs
to submit in a week, action plans to expeditiously complete trial proceedings in 4,442 criminal and
corruption cases against sitting and ex-legislators
Ø As
many as 2,556 cases are pending against sitting MPs and MLAs . Among CMs,
Telengana’s K Chandrasekhar Rao leads the telly with 64 criminal cases ,
followed by Andhra Pradesh’s Y S Jaganmohan Reddy with 38 criminal cases
Ø A
bench of Justices N V Ramana, Surya Kant and Hrishikesh Roy asked chief
justices of each HC to formulate an action plan on requirement
of Special Courts for exclusive trials of criminal cases against sitting
and former legislators , while keeping in view following parameters :
# Total no of pending cases in each district
# No of Special Courts required for speedy
trials
# Existing number of Special courts
# No of judges and subject categories of
pending cases
# Tenure of the judges to be designated
# No of cases to be assigned to each judge
# Expected time for disposal of cases
# Distance between the designated courts
# Requirement of
Infrastructure
The Bench also reminded the HC CJs about the 2018 SC judgement which has ruled that if a stay on
trial granted by HC was more than 6 months old, then the trial court could
proceed with the trial as if there was no stay
========================================================
Extract :
“ Govt
to set up 12 special courts to
try 1,581 MPs and MLAs “
Highlights
:
· 228……….
Members of Parliament to be tried in two special courts
· 13,500 …
Approx number of total pending cases
· 1,125 …..
Number of cases that each special court will have to decide in a year
· 242……..
Number of days trial courts normally function in a year
· 4.6………
Ave number of cases per day, each special court will have to dispose off
I assume
that,
· It will be May 2018 , by the time these Special Courts start working –
more than 4 YEARS after the Supreme Court
directed the Centre to set up these courts
· These “ Super Efficient “ courts will
refuse to grant any “ Postponement Dates “ to the accused and not only conclude
within ONE HOUR ( whether the accused was
guilty or not ) but also announce the VERDICT , on the spot ( remember , 4.6 cases / day ? )
· There cannot be any “ Appeal “ against the judgements of these
special courts
· Some 365 MPs
/ MLAs ( out of those 1581 accused ) will be found GUILTY
· The Speakers of the Lok Sabha / Rajya Sabha ,
will get court order copies within 7 days
· The Speakers will disqualify, within 7 days, those MPs / MLAs who are
declared guilty and who have been handed out sentences of 5 years or more
· The Election Commission will receive
these “ Disqualification Notifications “ in
7 days
· The Election Commission will announce
re-election dates within 30 days for
seats falling vacant
· These Elections will start from Dec 2018 and stretch
throughout 365 days of 2019
· To ensure proper / timely availability of
Election officers / police / EVMs / polling booths / presiding officers /
school-teachers / transport etc , spread over 28 States , no more than ONE ELECTION will be conducted PER DAY ( - one for each of 365 days of 2019 ! )
I had
envisaged this scenario , as far back as MAY 2014 , in :
AllSeasons Are Election Seasons
https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2014/05/all-seasons-are-election-seasons.html
2019 will be a nightmare year , not only for the politicians
but also for the voters !
========================================================
Now,
in past 2 years, how many cases have these 12 Special Courts tried ?
( source : https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/1097-criminal-cases-pending-against-mps-mlas-before-special-courts-centre-tells-/316403
/ 11 Sept 2018 )
Extract :
The Ministry of Law and Justice in an affidavit told the court
that there are a dozen courts -- six sessions and five
magistrate courts (in the case of Tamil Nadu, the class of the court has not
been indicated). As many as 1,233 criminal cases involving MPs and MLAs were
transferred to these courts.
Of
these 1,233 cases, 136 have been disposed of and 1,097 are pending.
The Centre's reply came in
response to August 21 order of the top court seeking to know the number of
special courts that have been set up following its December 14, 2017 order and
the number of cases pending before these courts
=========================================================
At this rate , how many special Courts would be
needed to dispose off all the cases by Dec 2021 ?
How does the following sound ?
Ø 136
cases by 12 courts = 12 cases / court , in one year
Ø That
means 12 courts would need 100 years to dispose off 1233 cases
Ø Alternately,
we need 100 Special Courts to dispose off these 1233 cases in 1 year
Obviously, this just cannot happen ! Central Government
has neither the resources nor the WILL , to set up 100 Physical Courts anytime
soon !
===================================================
So ,
what is the alternative ?
E Courts , is the only answer
In past few months, we have come across following examples
of VIRTUAL GOVERNANCE :
Ø Supreme
Court conducting trials / hearings using Video-Conferencing
Ø High
Courts doing likewise
Ø Even
Lok Sabha allowing MPs to participate remotely
Ø PM
having e-conferences with State Chief Ministers, using Video-Meet
Ø United
Nations General Assembly going VIRTUAL
Ø May
be ( ? ) even World Economic Forum ( WEF )
Ø EU
Ministers, regularly meeting ONLINE
Ø In
India , many companies conducting AGMs , online
Ø Most
“ Service Sector “ companies in India, letting employees to work from home
This trend is bound to accelerate over next few months
With minimum infrastructure and time-loss, we can,
easily set up, not just 100 but even 1,000 E-Courts , through launch of a portal { technology already commonplace }
On the same portal , 1,000 judges ( sitting in their homes ) can conduct trials ,
occupying 1,000 VIRTUAL COURTS
Complainants / Plaintiffs / Lawyers / Witnesses etc.,
too can log-on from their homes, into their RESPECTIVE / ASSIGNED , COURT-ROOMS
[ Perfect Social Distancing ]
Finding 1,000 retired judges within ONE MONTH, cannot
be a problem . They will be happy to work from 9 am to 6 pm ( with 30 minutes
lunch-break )
I urge Shri
Ravishankar Prasadji, to consider my suggestion
With regards,
Hemen Parekh / hcp@RecruitGuru.com / 29
sept 2020
===================================================
Related Readings :
https://doj.gov.in/ [ Tele
– Law / Reaching the Unreached ]
========================================================
