New Delhi:
The Supreme Court today has said that judges must reach verdicts within one year in cases of law-makers accused of grave crimes.
Lower courts have been ordered to expedite trials so politicians are quickly acquitted or disqualified. Judges of those courts would have to explain any delays, the Supreme Court said.
The verdict is an attempt to decriminalize politics by ensuring that politicians charged with crimes are not re-elected because their trials are moving slowly.
The order comes at a time when public frustration with endemic corruption has peaked; Arvind Kejriwal's new Aam Aadmi Party, which says its mission is to deracinate graft from the polity, was rewarded heavily in the December state election in Delhi, forcing other mainstream parties to push clean governance to the top of their list of campaign promises.
"Any order to decriminalise politics is welcome. We look forward to this, " said Shakeel Ahmed of the Congress, which has been pummelled by a voluptuous body of financial scandals.
Currently, law-makers can run in elections while being tried.
But those convicted of serious crimes including corruption, rape and murder are immediately disqualified, according to a landmark Supreme Court judgment last year.
Many politicians charged with serious cases of graft are among those contesting the national election which starts next month. Among them: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy and BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan of the Congress.