The Supreme Court has presented more clarification on its directions to create Special Courts for Trial of Criminal Cases against sitting and former MPs/MLAs.
The Bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and also comprising of Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Surya Kant added that their directions don't mean that the cases under trial with Magistrates as per the IPC and the CrPC are to be transferred to the Sessions Court.
The Court stated so while putting a stay on Allahabad High Court's Notice dated 16.08.2019 asking to transfer the cases pending against legislators from Magistrates to the Special MP/MLA Courts created at the Sessions Courts level.
The Court was dealing with a plea filed by Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, who pleaded that Cheating Cases against him be tried before the Magistrate Courts as per the CrPC, instead of being transferred to the Sessions Court as per the notification issued by the Allahabad High Court.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Azam Khan, had argued that the transferring of cases triable by Magistrates to the Sessions Court was in violation of the procedure established by law. He said that more than the losing of the right to appeal, his emphasis was on the violation of right to equality.
"There is no dispute that Special Courts can be created for a class of offences or offender, but the jurisdiction must be as conferred by the statute".
The Supreme Court had on 14.12.2018, in Ashwani Kumar Upadhyay vs Union of India & Another, 2018 Latest Caselaw 935 SC issued directions for setting up Fast Track Courts for the trial of cases pending against elected MPs/MLAs.
The order clarified that the directions were “tentative at this stage” so as to get the Court(s) operational and functional. The Court indicated that as and when necessary changes were required to be made in those directions, or if any additional directions were required, they would be issued from time to time.
The Court stated that the directions contained in the Order don't supplant the jurisdictional provisions contained either in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 or in other special enactments governing the trial of offences governed by those enactments and they didn't mandate the High Courts to transfer cases which are triable by Magistrates to Sessions Courts.
The Court pointed out that Allahabdad High Court erred in interpretation of the order and the and the impugned Notice was based on an evident misconstruction of the directions.
Thus, the Court ordered the Allahabad High Court to allocate criminal cases involving former and sitting legislatures to as many sessions courts and magisterial courts as required.
In view of the above, further all the other High Courts were also requested to assign and allocate criminal cases involving former and sitting legislatures to as many Sessions Courts and Magisterial Courts as each High Court would consider appropriate fit and expedient.
Read Order Here:
source ; .latestlaws.com
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