A public interest litigation (PIL) has been moved in the Supreme Court seeking directions to establish special anti-corruption courts in every district to resolve and decide the cases related to different types of economic offences like money laundering and tax evasion within one year.
The PIL is moved by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay who has sought directions to all the High Courts to take necessary steps to decide cases related to economic offences.
The petitioner has made states, union territories, Ministry of Home Affairs, and Ministry of Law & Justice parties in the petition.
Ashwini Upadhyay has filed the petition through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey. The petitioner has contended that due to long pendency and ineffective anti-corruption laws, India has never been ranked among the top 50 in the Corruption Perception Index.
The petitioner also stated that Centre and state governments have also not taken any appropriate steps in this regard. “None of the welfare schemes and government departments are corruption-free,” said the petition.
The petition further states, “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.”
“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,” the petitioner added.
