76 parliamentarians charged with serious crimes: Report

Of the 162 parliamentarians involved in 306 criminal cases, 76 are charged with serious crimes like murder, attempt to murder and kidnapping, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) said Tuesday.

The analysis of the Lok Sabha MPs elected in 2009 comes a day after the Supreme Court directed that criminal cases against MPs and MLAs should be completed within a year from the date of the trial court framing charges.

After analysing the affidavits of the MPs elected in 2009, the ADR and NEW observed that some cases have remained pending for more than 20 years while the average number of years that the cases have remained pending is seven years.

"The analysis is of those cases for which the MP has provided the dates as most of the contesting candidates do not provide the relevant dates like the first information report, date of filing of chargesheets, date of convictions, etc." the ADR said.

According to ADR and NEW, the longest pending case is against Guddu Premchand, Congress MP from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, booked for murder followed by Sisir Kumar Adhikari of the All India Trinamool Congress who represents Kanthi in West Bengal. A case of rioting and theft against him is pending for 28 years.

Similarly, a case of murder against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentarian from Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Ramakant Yadav has been pending for 25 years.

A total of 50 MPs have a total of 136 criminal cases pending against them for 10 years or more while 30 of them have a total of 58 serious criminal cases pending for the same period.

The ADR and NEW further said Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MPs have 69 criminal cases against them followed by the BJP (55 cases), the Samajwadi Party (34 cases) and the Congress (30 cases).

"Kameshwar Baitha of JMM from Palamau, Jharkhand has declared 69 counts of serious cases against himself followed by Jagdish Sharma of the JD-U from Jahanabad, Bihar with 17 such cases."