Supreme court asks Centre to submit proposal to expedite criminal justice system

August 1, 2014

The Supreme Court has said that the judiciary cannot fast-track cases against MPs and in fact asked the government to submit a proposal within a month to expedite the Criminal justice system in India. The apex court also observed that the pace of criminal justice system is not satisfactory in the country.
This statement from Supreme Court came because recently, PM Narendra Modi had asked Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to devise a mechanism to adjudicate criminal and other court cases against politicians within a year.
The Law Ministry has already begun working on the roadmap and one of the options is to pursue the suggestions of the Law Commission made to the apex court in March 2014. As per the law panel, the trial must be expedited and concluded within a one-year period for charges framed against sitting MPs or MLAs. If trial is not concluded within a year then (either) the MP/MLA may be disqualified at the expiry of the one-year period or the MP/MLAs’ right to vote in the House as a member, remuneration shall be suspended at the expiry of the one-year period.
As per a research by the Association for Democratic Reforms, this Parliament has a significant number of legislators facing criminal charges – 186 members or 34% of the Lok Sabha.

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