NEW DELHI: Seeking to arrest the trend of never-ending criminal trials against politicians, the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked high courts to allocate the pending 4,122 criminal cases against them to adequate number of sessions and magisterial courts for expeditious completion of trials.A report filed by amicus curiae Vijay Hansaria in the SC giving state-wise details of cases pending against politicians said,“ 4,122 criminal cases were pending against sitting and former MPs and MLAs, of which 2,324 cases were against sitting legislators, and some of the cases were pending for three decades”.Among those facing cases are chief ministers of Karnataka and Punjab, H D Kumaraswamy and Amarinder Singh . Karnataka Lokayukta police had filed an FIR against Kumaraswamy on May 16 last year for an “offence punishable with life imprisonment”. An FIR was registered against Singh on March 23, 2007, under Prevention of Corruption Act and several provisions of IPC, but the trial court is yet to frame charges.Hansaria and advocate Sneha Kalita told a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph, “Out of the 4,122 cases, charges are yet to be framed in 1,991 cases and 430 cases involving offences punishable with death/life sentence are pending against 180 sitting legislators and former legislators.” The amicus suggested setting up a sessions and a magisterial court in each of the 440 districts where these 4,122 cases are pending.Taking note of widespread politician-criminal nexus, the SC ordered, “Instead of designating one sessions court and one magisterial court in each district, we request each high court to assign/allocate criminal cases involving former and sitting legislators to as many sessions courts and magisterial courts as each high court may consider proper, fit and expedient. This, according to us, would be a more effective step instead of concentrating all the cases involving former and sitting legislators in a special court(s) in the district.”Aiming for speedier trial in cases of heinous offences against politicians, the SC asked trial courts to give priority to cases involving “offences punishable with imprisonment for life/death against sitting MPs/MLAs as well as former MPs/MLAs”. The next in priority for trial courts would be cases involving serious offences punishable with imprisonment of five or more years, the bench said.Finding that sitting MLAs from Bihar and Kerala were accused in most cases of heinous offences, the CJI-led bench made a special procedure for trial of legislators in the two states. “The designated courts in the districts in the aforesaid two states of Kerala and Bihar will submit monthly report to the high court with regard to the cases where chargesheets have not yet been filed, cases where charges have not yet been framed giving reasons there for, and the progress of the trial where the cases are ready. The high courts, in turn, will forward the said reports to the registry of this court with a copy to the amicus curiae who is requested to go through the said reports and assist the court by placing the information conveyed before this court in an appropriate manner on the next date/dates of hearing.”The SC posted the matter for further hearing on December 14 and clarified that the 12 special courts set up by various HCs earlier would continue to function as before.