NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday pulled up the central government for not furnishing the details of MLAs and MPs who have criminal records against them.

A petition had been moved in SC by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, seeking its direction to establish special courts to expeditiously try criminal cases registered against MPs and MLAs. The SC asked the Centre to file its detailed response by September 5 in the case, when it would take up the matter for hearing.

The top court had on December 14 last year directed the Centre to set up 12 special courts to exclusively deal with cases involving politicians and said that these should start functioning from March 1 this year.

On August 21, a bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi , directed the Centre to inform the court whether the special courts were set up along with the information whether these were sessions or magisterial courts, what was their territorial jurisdiction and the number of cases pending before each of these special courts.

SC also asked the government whether it intended to set up additional special courts over and above the courts already set up.

The bench said these details should be placed before it and posted the matter for further hearing on August 28.

Referring to the Centre's affidavit filed in the matter, the court had observed that it contained "incomplete information" as the government said that they were in the process of compiling the information received from the states.

On November 1 last year, the bench had asked the Centre as to "how many of 1,581 cases involving Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and Members of Parliament (MPs) (as declared at the time of filing of the nomination papers to the 2014 elections) have been disposed of within the time frame of one year as envisaged by this court by order dated March 10, 2014....".

"How many of these cases which have been finally decided have ended in acquittal/conviction of MPs and MLAs, as may be," the court had asked the Centre, adding, "Between 2014 -2017 (as on date) whether any further criminal case(s) has been lodged against any present or former legislator (MP/MLA) and, if so, the detail(s) thereof, including detail(s) with regard to the disposal of such case (s)".

The top court was hearing the petition seeking to declare the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, which bar convicted politician from contesting elections for six years after serving jail term, as ultra vires of the Constitution.

(With inputs from agencies)

