Law ministry invites proposals to 'comprehensively evaluate' MP-MLA courts

The Union law ministry has invited proposals from top institutes, including IIMs, IITs, law universities and judicial academies, to carry out a "comprehensive evaluation" of special courts set up to hold expeditious trial of criminal cases involving MPs and MLAs to assess their functionality, efficacy and overall impact.

The proposals have been invited under 'Scheme for Action Research and Studies on Judicial Reforms' of the Department of Justice which functions under the law ministry.

Following the directions of the Supreme Court in 2017, the central government had facilitated setting up of 12 special courts in states for expeditious trial of criminal cases involving MPs and MLAs.

Accordingly, 12 special courts -- two in Delhi and one each in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala -- were constituted.

Ten such courts are currently functional in nine states.

The special courts of Bihar and Kerala were discontinued as per the direction of the apex court in December 2018.

The performances of these special courts is being monitored by the Supreme Court.

According to the call for proposals issued by the Department of Justice, "This study should conduct a comprehensive evaluation of these special courts to assess their functionality, efficacy and overall impact in view of the fact that their performance is monitored by the Supreme Court and they are partly funded by the Government of India."

According to the dashboard of the special courts accessed on Monday, Delhi's two special courts have no pending case and no case has been disposed.

Similarly, the sole court functioning in Uttar Pradesh has disposed 50 cases and 1,137 are pending. In Madhya Pradesh, one such court is functioning which has disposed five cases and 319 are pending.

In Maharashtra, the court has disposed 13 cases with 419 pending.

Besides, the special MP-MLA courts, the department has also invited proposals to study the functioning of special fast track courts, Gram Nyayalayas (village courts) and Tele-law scheme.