Special Court for MPs, MLAs in Delhi now presided over by Judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar

The Special Court in New Delhi which deals with criminal cases pertaining to Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assemblies shall now be presided over by Judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar..Judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar shall replace Judge Arun Bhardwaj who has proceeded to the Supreme Court of India in diverted capacity..The Sunanda Pushkar case against MP Shashi Tharoor, INX Media case against MP Karti Chidambaram and Rail Bhawan Protest case against Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal are some of the notable cases that would be heard by Judge Kuhar..As per an Order passed by the Delhi High Court, Judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar shall nonetheless pronounce judgements/orders that were reserved by him..The pronouncement shall be done on the date already fixed or maximum within a period of 2-3 weeks..The date of the pronouncement shall be notified in the cause list of the court to which the matter pertains, the court to which Judge Kuhar has been transferred as well on the website..On November 1, 2017, the Supreme Court had directed the Central government to set up a Central Scheme to set up Fast Track Courts with a view to exclusively dealing with criminal cases pending against legislators. The order was passed by a bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Navin Sinha in a PIL seeking lifetime ban on convicted legislators..The Centre, in turn, had submitted that it would set up twelve Special Courts for a period of one year. This number was based on the 11th Finance Commission report, which found that one such court can dispose of 165 cases per year..Subsequently, the Delhi High Court passed an administrative order in February 2018, designating special courts to deal with cases against Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assemblies..Apart from Kuhar, Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal also deals with criminal cases pertaining to legislators..[Read Notice]