The Supreme Court on Thursday refused an early hearing on a petition to sack jailed Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain and Maharashtra cabinet minister Nawab Malik. The bench said that such matters need to be posted before Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, then only it will be posted.
The vacation bench of Justices CT Ravikumar and Sudhanshu Dhulia said this case should be mentioned before the Chief Justice of India.
BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay mentioned that the plea stated that a legislator cannot continue in office after being convicted. Justice CT Ravikumar said that did he mention this before the mentioning registrar. Else they have to spend 40 minutes only on such cases, the judge said.
Upadhyay replied that the Maharashtra cabinet minister is in judicial custody for 4 months and the health minister of Delhi has been in custody for 30 days. He further said that this is a serious violation of Article 14.
The bench said that this case will most probably be posted next week.
On June 16, a PIL was filed in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Delhi government to sack Satyendar Jain and to the Maharashtra government to sack Nawab Malik since they had money laundering cases against them.
In the petition, it is also mentioned that permitting criminals to become legislators results in the breakdown of the rule of law both in terms of the government machinery as well as the system of administration of justice. It was also stated that the court must take steps to deter criminals from becoming legislators also to uphold the rule of law inherent in Article 14.