Courts Hearing Criminal Cases Should Dispose Of Cases Expeditiously: Madras HC

The Madras High Court on June 17, 2021 while closing its suo moto proceedings initiated pursuant to Supreme Court order in September 2020 in Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and Ors v. Union of India requiring the High Court to monitor the criminal cases against MPs / MLAs in the State of Tamil Nadu has directed Special Courts to dispose of the cases expeditiously

“Since the Benches have been set up and infrastructure and other aspects are in place, the suo motu proceedings need not be continued any further, with an observation that all Courts hearing the criminal cases should deal with them as expeditiously as the business of that Court would permit and ensure that the matters are brought to a logical conclusion without undue delay.”, the bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthil Kumar Ramamoorthy observed. 

The Court also took note of the submissions made on behalf of the High Court administration wherein it was contended that the matter had served its purpose since all vacancies were filled up, the infrastructure was put in place and territorial jurisdictions were demarcated.

On January 5, 2021, the Court while noting that the State had been requested to augment judiciary’s resources had sought for chartering out a comprehensive road map by taking into account account the litigative resourcefulness of the legislators and the affinity to delay the trials so as to ensure the early disposal of the criminal cases in accordance with law.

On January 11, 2021, the Court had asked to immediately take appropriate steps for filling up vacant posts in Special Sessions Court in Chennai and further directed for constituting an appropriate Committee at the High Court level to look into the necessary additional infrastructure and the time within which the same could 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.

On February 11, 2021 the Court after noticing MPs MLAs lodging complaint and carrying the matters to the Special Bench irrespective of presence of benches dealing with matters pertaining to MPs and MLAs in High Court and Districts had directed the Special benches to take up complaints against MPs and MLAs and not where MP or MLA were the complainant and had further directed the Special Benches to take up complaints both against former and sitting MPs and MLAs.

Case Title: Suo Motu Writ Petition v. The State of Tamil Nadu| W.P.No.16154 of 2020