The Supreme Court on Tuesday advised the Centre to set up special fast track courts to exclusively deal with cases of corruption and disproportionate assets against members of legislative bodies.
The observation came as the Bench reserved orders on a PIl which demanded action against MPs and MlAs whose income grows five to ten folds, without any mechanism to punish them under law for amassing such huge wealth beyond their known sources of income.
The court was confronted with the names of 7 lok Sabha MPs and 98 MlAs against whom the Income Tax authorities found proof that the income declared by them in election affidavits was beyond their known sources of income.
The Bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer examined the sealed cover containing the names of MPs and MlAs under probe by the Income Tax authorities and told the Centre that a mechanism must be there to ensure such cases are fast-tracked.
The Bench felt that the Parliament had the competence to enact a law to create necessary infrastructure for setting up of such courts for speedy disposal of cases against lawmakers. Attorney General KK Venugopal told the Court that the recommendation could be made by the Court to the executive rather than the legislature. However, he batted for a timely follow-up in cases of MPs and MlAs found to disclose substantial assets and income in their election affidavit which is found to be beyond their known sources of income.
In such cases, Venugopal said, the Director General Income Tax (Investigations) verifies and forwards those cases where investigation is required to the Assessing Officer. The petitioner NGO lok Prahari represented by former bureaucrat SN Shukla demanded that such investigation must be time-bound and the names be revealed in public interest.
Attorney General pointed out that with the right to privacy now declared a fundamental right, the returns filed by individual candidates is part of his/her privacy that needs to be protected. The Bench said it will have to be balanced against the citizen’s right to know under Article 19(1)(a) for determining which interest is superior.
Although Centre refused to disclose details claiming immunity available to DGIT investigation under Right to Information Act, the bench wondered whether such immunity can exist for lawmakers when people have a Constitutional right to know details of their elected representatives.