The special court constituted to try cases against Kerala lawmakers has so far disposed of 31 cases. In nine months, nearly 300 cases were registered. Most of the legislators who were booked, including Ministers T.M. Thomas Isaac, A.K. Balan, Kadakampally Surendran, and E.P. Jayarajan, have procured bail from the court.
It was on March 3 that the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Ernakulam, was designated as the special court. The special court was set up on a directive from the Supreme Court.
However, with the Supreme Court directive on Tuesday, all cases drawn to this court from different parts of the State will be sent back to the courts where they were originally registered.
Process begins
The special court has already initiated steps for segregating the cases collected here to be sent back to the jurisdictional courts. The High Court will now have to “assign/allocate criminal cases involving former and sitting legislators to as many sessions courts and magisterial courts as each High Court may consider proper, fit and expedient as directed by the Supreme Court,” judicial sources said. It would take nearly a year for the cases to be reallocated and the trial to restart, they added.
The State government has withdrawn 12 criminal cases including the ones booked against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, three Ministers and a few LDF MLAs from the special court.
Cases against Excise Minister T.P. Ramakrishnan, Power Minister M.M. Mani and Mr. Surendran were withdrawn. A defamation case against P. Karunakaran, MP, was withdrawn by the petitioner.
Cases against M. Swaraj, P. Aisha Potty, C. Divakaran, T.V. Rajesh, P.K. Sreemathi, James Mathew and P. Unni and two cases against N.K. Premachandran, MP, were withdrawn.
