BENGALURU: With the number of pending cases increasing in the Lokayukta Special Court, the department of law is reportedly preparing to set up an additional court to hear cases related to corruption.
As there are hundreds of cases pending from many years before the Lokayukta Court, the law department is said to have initiated the process to establish additional court to reduce the burden on the existing courts.
“The initial process to set up an additional court has begun. The proposal to create an additional court was pending before the government from several years. The existing court was burdened with hundreds of pending cases from the last few years. Despite sending proposals to start additional court, nothing had changed,” an official said.
The move comes after the Karnataka High Court sought reasons for the increase in the number of pending cases and the status of the proposal to set up additional court submitted to the government.
“Based on the court direction, it was apprised that the existing court had to try not only the cases registered by the Lokayukta police, but also the private complaints filed directly in the court, the cases filed by the Special Investigation Team set up to probe illegal mining, and other cases,” the official said.
He added that trap cases do not take much time, but the disproportionate asset cases are time consuming and involve a lot of procedures.
Meanwhile, the SIT set up to probe illegal mining, had also requested the government to set up a Special Court to try its cases. The request was based on the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2015. However, the government has not responded so far.
“We had written to the government twice in this regard but there is no response. The request was made as the existing court is already burdened with pending cases,” he added.
