Court directs political parties to display the criminal record of candidates who contest on their ticket on their official websites.
Political parties have to display the criminal record of candidates who contest on their ticket on their official websites, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court directed on September 25, 2018.
Parties should also issue a declaration on the criminal antecedents of their candidates in a widely circulated publication, said a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.
To facilitate this transparency by parties, candidates should first give complete information about their criminal past or pending cases to the parties on whose ticket they intend to contest elections, stated the judgment.
This is to ensure that the ordinary voter can have an “informed choice” about who he has to vote for in a country “tired of money and muscle power,” said the court.
The direction to compel political parties to go public about their “criminal” candidates is a step to “foster and nurture an informed citizenry” and to protect the “culture and purity in politics.”
The court said criminal politicians are nothing but a liability to this country. Their presence in power strikes at the roots of democracy. Criminalisation of politics and corruption, especially at the entry level of elections, has become a national and economic terror. It is a disease which is self-destructive and becoming immune to antibiotics, opined the court.
“There is a steady increase in the level of criminality creeping into politics,” the court observed.
Parties need to come clean about the criminal elements within their apparatus.
To fill up forms
Chief Justice Misra, who authored the verdict for the Bench, directed “each contesting candidate,” whether he or she belongs to a party or not, to fill up all the required information in the forms to be submitted to the Election Commission of India before an election.
The candidate should fill up in block letters the complete details of their criminal antecedents, if any.
The Bench, however, refused to legislate and add a disqualification that candidates charged with heinous crimes should be banned from contesting elections.
Instead, it urged Parliament to consider such a disqualification, saying the nation eagerly awaits its decision. It noted that the Election Commission of India has its hands tied, watching on as criminalisation of politics at the entry level is on the rise.
The Bench, also comprising Justices A.M. Khanwilkar, Rohinton Nariman, D.Y. Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra, made it clear that the Supreme Court cannot legislate for Parliament.
It said “time has come for the Parliament to act” and empower the poll body. “The court declares the law, the Parliament makes the law,” Justice Nariman had observed.
Chief Justice Misra had pointed out that Parliament was obliged under Article 102 (1) (e) to make a law. “As conscience-keepers of the Constitution, we [Supreme Court] can ask you [Parliament] to do it,” he stated.
The court countered the government’s submissions that only a convicted candidate can be disqualified from contesting elections.
It addressed Attorney General K.K. Venugopal’s submissions during the hearings that a person is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty, and nothing prevents an accused, who won an election on public mandate, from becoming a lawmaker.
False cases foisted upon politicians
Chief Justice Misra said, “It is one thing to take cover under the presumption of inncocence, but it is another to allow politics to be smeared by criminal stain.” The court said Parliament should also consider the issue of false cases foisted upon politicians.
The judgment came on a batch of petitions to bar politicians facing charges of heinous crimes like murder, rape and kidnapping from contesting elections.
Under the Representation of the People Act, convicted lawmakers are disqualified from contesting elections, but not accused ones.
