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In pursuance of the Supreme Court’s order dated August 10, 2021 regarding the matter of pending criminal cases against MPs & MLAs, the Registrar General of Kerala High Court has filed the affidavit stating the details of the cases in concerned courts stating tha, till July 31^st, 2021 there are a total of 547 criminal cases against MP/MLAs pending before various court in Kerala.

Through the earlier order, the top court Full Bench of Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Vineet Saran had asked the Registrar General of all High Courts to submit a detailed list of the Judges who are hearing these abovesaid cases mentioning which ones are pending and which ones have been disposed of, however, the CBI courts, Special Court which are hearing such cases are to continue, till further orders of the Court.

The filed affidavit states the details regarding the Presiding officer and case statics of the Special Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court to try criminal cases against MP/MLAs at Ernakulam, only Special Court for the purpose and details of cases against legislators which are pending in other various other courts.

According to the affidavit, for Special Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court 179 such disposed cases are there including 131 retransmissions before Judge Smt. Saleena V.G. Nair. The number of total pending cases in the court is 170.

Further, in district Thiruvananthapuram 80 such cases are pending being undecided. In Kollam district, in a single such case the accused was acquitted whereas 28 such case are pending. Similarly, in Pathanmthitta district, 12 such cases are pending being one disposed of.

In District Alappuzha, 20 such cases are pending and in district Kottayam, 9 are pending. The affidavit adds that in Thodupuzha Judicial District 23 such cases are pending and in district Ernakulam 75 such cases are still pending.

Affidavit further adds the data of pending cases as in district Thrissur (14), in district Palakkad (25) in Manjeri Judicial District (7), in Kalpetta Judicial district (27), in Kozhikode (19), in Thalassery Judicial District (33), in Kasaragod (5).In one other annexure to the affidavit, details of the cases in which prosecution against a sitting or former MP/MLA was withdrawn without the leave of the High Court from September, 2020 to July, 2021 have also been provided.

According to this annexure, 36 such instances are there.

(Case Title: Ashwini Upadhyay v. Union of India)