SC to hear on Oct 31 plea to establish special anti-corruption courts in every district

NEW DELHI, (PTI): The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on October 31 a plea seeking to establish special anti-corruption courts in every district to decide cases related to various economic offences like money laundering and tax evasion within one year.

According to the cause list of October 31 uploaded on the apex court website, the petition is slated to come up for hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justices S R Bhat and Bela M Trivedi.

The PIL filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay has also sought directions to high courts to take appropriate steps to decide cases related to economic offences.

The PIL, filed through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, contended that the Centre and State governments have also not taken appropriate steps in this regard.

None of the government departments are corruption-free, it submitted.

“Due to long pendency and ineffective anti-corruption laws, even after 73 years of Independence and 70 years after becoming a socialist secular democratic republic, none of our districts are free from cases related to black money, benami property, disproportionate assets, bribery, money laundering, tax evasion and similar other economic offences,” the petition said.

India’s anti-corruption laws are very weak and ineffective and fail to control corruption, and even the Benami Transactions Act, passed in 1988, is gathering dust without action, it submitted. (PTI)