Government to allocate 7.8 crores for setting up special courts to try politicians

A Supreme Court bench of Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Navin Sinha on Thursday directed the Centre to proportionally allocate Rs. 7.8 crore for establishing 12 special courts that will be dealing with the cases involving politicians. The apex court also directed the governments of the states in which these special courts are going to be constituted will set up the courts in consultation with the high court of their respective states. The court also ordered that state governments will have to ensure that the special courts become functional by March 1, 2018. The court has granted to the Centre a time period of two months to collect data regarding all the pending cases against the politicians. Earlier the Centre has informed the Supreme Court about the proposal to set up 12 special courts that will decide the cases against politicians. The court had on November 1, asked the Centre to submit the details of all the 1581 cases against the MPs and MLAs. The Centre was also required to provide information about how many of these 1581 cases are still pending and if the cases have been disposed of then how many of them ended in acquittal or conviction. The matter relating to the life ban of convicted politicians will be heard by the Supreme Court in March. The Supreme Court was hearing a petition which was filed to struck down the provision of the Representation of People's Act. The provisions puts a six year ban on the convicted politicians to contest election. The court had on December 1 rejected to entertain a plea filed to debar all the convicted politicians from heading a political party. However, it agreed to examine the provisions of Representation of People's Act, 1951.