Observing that criminalisation of politics has turned out to be a worldwide phenomenon, the Madras High Court has mooted creation a committee at the High Court level to chart out the necessary infrastructure to fast track the 352 criminal cases pending against MPs and MLAs in Tamil Nadu, including 74 in Chennai.
Chennai:
The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, before whom the suo motu plea taken by it based on a Supreme Court direction came up, stressed on the need to have a uniform mechanism to fast track the cases without affection or ill will against any party.
“It is necessary that an appropriate committee be constituted at the High Court level to look into the additional infrastructure which may be necessary and how soon such infrastructure can be set up to meaningfully proceed with complaints against legislators and the resultant cases, so as to complete them with the kind of dispatch as contemplated in the orders passed by the Supreme Court,” the bench said.
The observation had come forth based on the submission made by Advocate-General Vijay Narayan that the extra Sessions Court in Chennai exclusively created to take matters against legislators lies vacant since September and that pursuant to the Supreme Court order of September 16, 2020, criminal cases which remain stayed ought to be taken up for immediate consideration.
