Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asked lawmakers to set up an example "because you are law-makers"
Politicians are often perceived to be hankering for perks and privileges because of the offices that they hold. But on Tuesday, some lawmakers appeared to protest the decision to set up dedicated courts to quickly decide criminal courts against them. One parliamentarian even suggested that such courts might run afoul of the constitutional guarantee to treat all citizens equally.
"There are no special courts for even terrorists and criminals," Samajwadi Party member Naresh Agrawal told the Rajya Sabha, demanding that the government to speed up criminal trials for everyone, not just politicians.
India's criminal justice system has been in a mess for years with no serious effort to recruit more judges to clear the huge backlog of cases. As then Union Home Secretary RK Singh had confessed in 2012, that if a person in his forties commits a murder, "he is most likely to die a free man".
With successive governments less than enthusiastic to commit the resources needed for faster trials, the Supreme Court had in November told the government to come up with a plan to set up special courts for lawmakers to evict criminals from legislatures. Last week, the top court cleared the government's plan to set up 12 special courts to exclusively try 1,500 cases against lawmakers on priority.
The idea was that if the lawmakers were indeed guilty, they would end up where they belong. And if they were innocent, they would walk out free without a taint on them.
It is this plan that Mr Agarwal was objecting to.
The MP from Uttar Pradesh said it wasn't that politicians wanted to delay their trial but there were a large number of people in prisons who weren't getting justice.
"At the same time if a perception is created that the special fast-track courts are only for MPs and MLAs, in public perception," he contended.
Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma appeared to back him up. Quoting Mr Agarwal, Mr Sharma said if you single out the elected representatives as a class, then this will create a certain public perception.
Nationalist Congress Party member and lawyer, Majeed Memon agreed that speedy justice for only lawmakers would violate the constitution. KTS Tulsi, on the other hand, worried that special courts for lawmakers could delay trials for others. "Merely because they are poor, they cannot be confined to the prisons indefinitely," Mr Tulsi, also a noted lawyer, said.
TDP member C.M. Ramesh and Janata Dal-United leader Harivansh, however, supported the fast-track courts saying lawmakers should set an example.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, however, rebutted the objections.
"We are lawmakers. Can we say that we have a vested interest in ensuring that our cases at least are delayed or at least be in our interest and we above suspicion," Mr Jaitley said. He said if there are allegations, they must be tried expeditiously.
"How can elected members say we have a vested interest in ensuring our trials gets delayed," he said.