New Delhi: Fourteen of India’s 31 chief ministers have pending criminal cases against them, according to a report submitted to the Supreme Court by senior advocate and amicus curiae Vijay Hansaria in a case concerning the speedy trial of criminal cases involving MPs and MLAs.
The report reveals that Telangana CM Revanth Reddy has the highest number of charges against him, with a staggering 89 cases listed against him. West Bengal’s Suvendu Adhikari is a distant second, having 29 pending cases against him.
At the bottom of the list is Odisha’s Mohan Charan Majhi, Sikkim’s PS Tamang, Punjab’s Bhagwant Mann and Rajasthan’s Bhajan Lal Sharma with just 1 case each.
Majhi declared one minor criminal case involving non-serious IPC sections in his election affidavits. It dates back to 2022, before he became CM, when he participated in a protest outside Keonjhar district jail demanding that an editor be allowed to meet Bajrang Dal activist Dara Singh, who is serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons.
According to Hansaria’s report, 4192 cases are pending against sitting MPs and MLAs, of which 519 have been pending for more than a decade. As many as 251 of the 543 Lok Sabha MPS and 75 of the 233 Rajya Sabha members face criminal cases.
Investigations have not yet begun in 700 cases, of which 360 have been stuck for more than three years without chargesheet even being filed.
The affidavit submitted to the top court reveals that 95% of the MPs from Kerala face charges, The New Indian Express reported. Telangana has 82% of its MPs facing serious charges, followed by Odisha with 76%.
As for MLAs, West Bengal leads at 58%, followed by at 57%, Andhra Pradesh (56%), Telangana (49%) and Odisha (45%).
CHIEF MINISTERS FACING CRIMINAL CHARGES
Telangana: A Revanth Reddy – 89 cases
West Bengal: Suvendu Adhikari – 29 cases
Karnataka: D K Shivakumar – 19 cases
Andhra Pradesh: N. Chandrababu Naidu – 19 cases
Kerala: V D Satheesan – 18 cases
Jharkhand: Hemant Soren – 5 cases
Maharashtra: Devendra Fadnavis – 4 cases
Himachal Pradesh: Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu – 4 cases
Tamil Nadu: C Joseph Vijay – 2 cases
Bihar: Samrat Choudhary – 2 cases
Sikkim: P S Tamang – 1 case
Punjab: Bhagwant Mann – 1 case
Odisha: Mohan Charan Majhi – 1 case
Rajasthan: Bhajan Lal Sharma – 1 case.