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Criminal cases against lawmakers: HC seeks trial status
The bench of Justice AG Masih and Justice Sandeep Moudgil passed the order while hearing a suo motu plea in which it is monitoring the probe progress in criminal cases against lawmakers.
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Tuesday sought the status of trials in criminal cases against MPs and MLAs in two states and Chandigarh.
The bench of Justice AG Masih and Justice Sandeep Moudgil passed the order while hearing a suo motu plea in which it is monitoring the probe progress in criminal cases against lawmakers.
“The latest status report with regard to not only the cases under investigation but trials also need to be submitted,” the bench said, posting the matter for hearing on July 19.
Earlier, Haryana had told the court that there are nine cases investigation into which is still pending.
In all other cases, the final report has been submitted. Either the cases are pending before the court for orders to be passed on the final report or the trials are in progress, it had submitted.
As for Punjab, it had told court that four cases are still under investigation. Apart from that, eight fresh cases have been registered which are under investigation. Out of these eight cases, except for one, the others fall under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, registered during the assembly polls campaigning in the state. Among others booked include former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi and SAD leader Bikramjit Singh Majithia.
The Chandigarh administration had told the court that there is only one case which is under investigation, where again, a final report has been prepared and is likely to be submitted in the court. The CBI, ED and the income tax department informed the court that there is no case under investigation and all matters are pending either before the authorities or before the competent court.
The monitoring has been started by the high court on the SC directions. As per March 2021 reports submitted by respective states, 163 cases were pending against sitting or erstwhile lawmakers in Punjab and 21 in Haryana. The status of cases where trial is underway is being sought for the first time by the high court.
