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Eight Political Parties Fined for Not Publishing Lists of Candidates with Criminal Antecedents

Eight Political Parties Fined for Not Publishing Lists of Candidates with Criminal Antecedents

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NEW DELHI, Aug 10: Expressing its anguish for not been able to do much to weed out criminalisation of politics, the Supreme Court on Tuesday held nine parties including the BJP and Congress guilty of contempt and imposed fine on eight of them for not making public criminal records of their candidates. Parties “refuse to wake up from deep slumber”, the judges said.

To stop state governments from misusing their powers, the court also said criminal cases against MLAs or MPs cannot be withdrawn without approval from High Courts. Notably, cases filed against candidates are often political.

These political parties were also directed to disclose information about such candidates in newspapers as well as on social media.

According to the report, six parties — the BJP, the Congress, Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD), Janata Dal United (JD(U), CPI, and Lok Jan Shakti Party — were fined Rs 1 lakh for partial non-compliance. The CPM and Nationalist Congress Party were fined ₹ 5 lakh for not making public their candidates’ criminal cases ahead of last year’s Bihar election.

“Despite repeated appeals, political parties refuse to wake up from deep slumber,” said the Supreme Court. “Political lawmakers will wake up soon and carry out major surgery for weeding out the malignancy of criminalisation of politics,” the court noted in its order.

The Supreme Court’s appeals had “fallen on deaf ears”, said Justices RF Nariman and BR Gavai. “Though we want to do something urgently, our hands are tied, we can’t encroach the domain of legislature,” they remarked.

The Supreme Court warned that the parties, in future, must display the information on their websites in future. The Election Commission has been asked to create a mobile app that has the information for voters to access easily.

The court was hearing petitions that call for suspending symbols of parties that had failed to disclose the criminal backgrounds of their candidates. Petitions had asked for contempt against political parties for not obeying the February 2020 orders of the Supreme Court. That verdict had said all political parties had to explain why they chose candidates with criminal cases and disclose details of the cases on their party website along with the reasons for selecting such candidates.

The CPM and NCP had given an unconditional apology to the Supreme Court after the Election Commission said it would suspend their symbols.

“We direct the Respondent Nos. 3,4,5,6,7 and 11 to deposit an amount of INR 1 Lakh each in the account created by the ECI as specified in this judgment in paragraph 73(iii) within a period of 8 weeks from the date of this judgment. Insofar as Respondent Nos. 8 and 9 are concerned, since they have not at all complied with the directions issued by this Court, we direct them to deposit an amount of INR 5 Lakh each in the aforesaid account within the aforesaid period,” the court said.

In February last year, the top court had directed all political parties to upload on their website details of pending criminal cases against candidates contesting polls, noting that there has been an alarming increase in criminalisation of politics.

The apex court said political parties will also have to upload reasons for selecting candidates with pending criminal cases on their website.

A bench headed by Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman said the reasons for selecting candidates with pending criminal cases should be justifiable with reference to qualification and merit and not merely on winnability.

The court passed orders on a contempt plea which raised the issue of criminalisation of politics claiming that directions given by the apex court in its September 2018 verdict relating to disclosure of criminal antecedents by candidates are not being followed.

(Manas Dasgupta)

 

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