POINTERS OF THE NEWS
1. Effect of Court Directions
The Supreme Court in its observations made some strong observations with regards to decriminalising the political system and said that people with criminal antecedents should not be allowed to become lawmakers. The Supreme Court directed that political parties publish information regarding criminal antecedents of candidates on the homepage of their websites. The Election Commission has geared up to write to heads of recognised political parties saying that it has created a fund in which fines for contempt of court can be deposited for failing to comply with the apex court’s directions.
2. Directions of the Supreme Court in Contempt Petition
The Hon’ble Supreme Court vide its judgment dated 10.08.2021 in Contempt Petition (C) No. 656 of 2020 titled Brajesh Singh Vs. Sunil Arora & Ors. has given the following directions:
“73. In furtherance of the directions issued by the Constitution Bench in Public Interest Foundation (supra) and our Order dated 13.02.2020, in order to make the right of information of a voter more effective and meaningful, we find it necessary to issue the following further directions:
(i) Political parties are to publish information regarding criminal antecedents of candidates on the homepage of their websites, thus making it easierfor the voter to get to the information that has to be supplied It will also become necessary now to have on the homepage a caption which states “candidates with criminal antecedents”;
(ii) The ECI is directed to create a dedicated mobile application containing information published by candidates regarding their criminal antecedents, so that at one stroke, each voter gets such information on his/her mobilephone;
(iii) The ECI is directed to carry out an extensive awareness campaign to make every voter aware about his right to know and the availability of information regarding criminal antecedents of all contesting candidates. This shall be done across various platforms, including social media, websites, TV ads, prime time debates, pamphlets, etc.
A fund must be created for this purpose within a period of 4 weeks into which finds for contempt of Court may be directed to be paid;
(iv) For the aforesaid purposes, the ECl is also directed to create a separate cell which will also monitor the required compliances so that this Court can be apprised promptly of non-compliance by any political party of the directions contained in this Court’s Orders, asfleshed out by the ECL in instructions, letters and circulars issued in this behalf;
(v) We clarify that the direction in paragraph 4.4 of our Order dated 13.02.2020 be modified and it is clarified that the details which are required to be published, shall be published within 48 hours of the selection of the candidate and not prior to two weeks before thefirst date offiling of nominations; and
(vi) We reiterate that if such a political party fails to submit such compliance report with the ECL the ECl shall bring such noncompliance by the political party to the notice of this Court as being in contempt of this Court’s Orders/directions, which shall infuture be viewed very seriously. “
In a step towards decriminalising politics, the Supreme Court recently directed that political parties must publish the criminal antecedents of candidates within 48 hours of their selection. A bench of Justices RF Nariman and BR Gavai modified its February 13, 2020, judgment in this regard. The Supreme Court was hearing a contempt plea seeking action against political parties which failed to declare and publicise criminal antecedents of their candidates.
The Supreme Court made it mandatory for all political parties to put up the details on their websites and also publish them in two newspapers. The compliance report will have to be submitted to the Election Commission of India within 72 hours of the selection of the candidate. It also reminded the political parties that the Commission was directed by the apex court to carry out an extensive campaign to make every voter aware of his or her right to know and the availability of information regarding criminal antecedents of all contesting candidates.
The judgment had stated that it would be mandatory for political parties to upload on the website detailed information about candidates with pending criminal cases. This information was required to include the nature of the offences as well as relevant particulars, as well as reasons for the selection of such a candidate and why others with no antecedents had not been selected. The information was also to be published on social media as well as one local vernacular newspaper and one national one, the verdict had made clear.
