The Allahabad High Court today sought to know from the newly elected BJP government in Uttar Pradesh what was its stand with regard to the Supreme Court's guidelines for expeditious disposal of criminal cases against lawmakers.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice D B Bhosale and Justice Yashwant Verma asked the new government to take a "fresh look on the issue and apprise it of the stand" within two weeks.
However, the court also expressed its opinion that there should be a committee comprising senior officials for monitoring of cases pending against MPs and MLAs so that the expeditious disposal of these could be ensured.
The court passed the order on a public interest litigation filed by one Ashutosh Gupta who had prayed for directions to the government for expeditious disposal of cases against MPs and MLAs in accordance with a two-year-old Supreme Court order.
The petitioner's counsel Pradeep Gupta submitted that a large number of criminal cases were pending against a large number of lawmakers from the state and cited the example of Gyanpur MLA Vijay Mishra, who is said to be named in as many as 67 cases.
Mishra had fought the recently held assembly polls on the ticket of newly-floated NISHAD party.
He was earlier with the Samajwadi Party but had resigned ahead of the assembly elections following denial of a party ticket by the then Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
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