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The Amicus has further submitted that the top court may further list the writ petition on a non-miscellaneous day with regard to the constitutional validity of the provisions of section 8 of the Representation of the People’s Act, 1951 in so far as the said provision limits the period of disqualification of a person to contest an election as an Member of Parliament and/or Member of State Legislative Assembly only for a period of six years from the date of the release upon conviction, even for a heinous offence.
In the 18th report submitted by Senior Advocate y Vijay Hansaria, the Amicus Curiae has informed the Supreme Court of India that 236 Lok Sabha members and 71 Rajya Sabha members have criminal cases against them.
Hansaria has relied on report of the Association for Democratic Rights that was published in July 2022 to submit that,
"236 out of 542 Lok Sabha members (44%), 71 out of 226 Rajya Sabha members (31%) and 1723 of 3991 State Legislators (43%) have criminal cases against them."
Notably, the Amicus in his 17th had pointed out that 5,097 cases are pending against MPs/MLAs out of which more than 40% i.e. 2,122 cases are pending for more than 5 years.
The 18th report also submits the responses received from a few high courts on the submission made by Hansaria to expedite the trial of criminal cases pending against MP/MLAs.
These reports are being filed in a plea filed by Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay seeking directions to the Centre for taking necessary steps to debar candidates charged with criminal offences from contesting elections, forming a political party, or becoming office-bearers of any party after two weeks.
In 2016, the present petition was filed by Adv. Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay which also sought directions to provide adequate infrastructure to set up Special Courts to decide criminal cases related to People Representatives, Public Servants and Members of the Judiciary within one year and debar the convicted persons uniformly from Legislature, Executive and Judiciary.
Later, a report was submitted by Amicus Curiae Hansaria, which stated that the number of criminal cases pending against sitting and former MPs and MLAs in December 2018 was 4,122. This has increased to 4,859 in September 2020, registering a jump of 17% in less than two years.
In February last year, a bench of Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justice Hima Kohli had agreed to list the matter after urgent mentioning by Amicus Curie Sr. Adv. Vinay Hansaria.
Hansaria while mentioning the matter had informed the bench that the 16th Report over the issue has been filed and that an urgent listing was required.
The report has stated that as many as 4984 cases are pending out of which 1899 cases are more than 5 years old. In addition to this, the total number of cases pending as of December 2018 was 4110, and as of October 2020 was 4859. Even after the disposal of 2775 cases after December 4, 2018, the cases against MPs/MLAs have increased from 4122 to 4984.
Case Title: Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay vs. Union of India
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