New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday pulled up the Central government for its failure to provide the number of criminal cases pending against MPs and MLAs despite being repeatedly told to do so. The court also deferred the hearing on a petition seeking special courts to exclusively try criminal cases against politicians to next week.The PIL, according to a LiveLaw report, had been filed by BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking that all convicted politicians be barred from electoral politics for life.“The government is compelling us to pass certain orders which we do not want at this stage. The union of India is unprepared. We express our anguish”, a bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Navin Sinha and K.M. Joseph said.According to Scroll, the Central government’s counter affidavit also failed to mention the number of criminal cases pending against politicians in fast-track courts already set up. It simply stated that the law ministry “is taking up the matter with concerned authorities for furnishing the information regarding the cases transferred/disposed/pending in the said courts.”M. Pandey, a top official of the ministry, merely provided a chart of communications in the affidavit and not the number of cases.After directing the Centre to set up special courts on November 1, 2017, the Supreme Court bench had in the most recent hearing on August 21 asked to speed up the process of setting up such courts and file a status report by August 28. The Supreme Court asked the Centre to furnish total number of cases pending before the already established courts. The apex court bench had further demanded a break-up of magisterial and sessions triable cases there.In December 2017, the Modi government informed the apex court that it had decided to set up 12 special courts to deal exclusively with criminal cases against lawmakers and politicians and that such courts would become functional by March 1.Then, in March, the Centre submitted before the court that 3,045 cases were pending against 1,765 MPs and MLAs. The court, after asking the government whether the special courts would qualify as sessions courts or magistrate’s courts, set the next date of hearing for August 30.According to a report from the Association for Democratic Reforms, one in every three MPs elected in 2014 – or 184 of the 542 winners analysed – had declared criminal cases against them. This was higher than the number in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections (158). Maharashtra had the highest number of winners with criminal cases against them, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Karnataka.“97 (35%) out of 281 winners analysed from BJP, 8 (18%) out of 44 winners from INC, 6 (16%) out of 37 winners from AIADMK, 15 (83%) out of 18 winners from Shiv Sena and 7 (21%) out of 34 winners fielded by AITC have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits,” the report said.(With agency inputs)