Recently, the Uttarakhand High Court took suo motu hearing on the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court for speedy trial of criminal cases registered against MPs and MLAs of the state.

While hearing the case, the division bench of Acting Chief Justice Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari and Justice Vivek Bharti Sharma has asked the state government as to how many criminal cases are registered against MPs and MLAs in the state, and how many are still pending? This information should be given to the court within two weeks.

The court had earlier also taken cognizance of the instructions given by the Supreme Court, but till now the government has not provided the list of pending cases against MLAs and MPs in the court. On which the court, following the order of the Supreme Court, took cognizance of the matter again.

In August 2021, the Supreme Court had directed the High Courts of all the states to conduct speedy hearing of the cases pending against the MPs and MLAs there. State governments are withdrawing cases registered against MPs and MLAs by misusing Section 321 of the IPC. State governments cannot withdraw cases registered against MPs and MLAs without permission. The Supreme Court has asked to constitute a special court for speedy disposal of cases.

The High Court dismissed the special appeal of the Vice Chancellor of Uttarakhand Technical University (UTU) challenging the October 2021 single bench order of the Court to hold the meeting of the Research Degree Committee (RDC) within two months. Also, instructions have been given to the Vice Chancellor to get the RDC done within two months. The Vice Chancellor had expressed his inability to hold the RDC meeting citing the ongoing vigilance investigation in connection with some other matters of the technical university.

The Court found that there was no legal restriction for the Vice Chancellor to hold an RDC meeting. Research scholar Priyaneet Kaur had approached the court. His PhD could not be completed even after six years of enrollment due to the RDC meeting not being organized by the UTU.