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By: Ritu Amarnarayan (3rd year) and Chiranthana N Yadav (1st year)
1. Introduction
In India, politics is faced with many challenges and evils like regionalism, communalism, Caste-ism, but criminalization is one of the herculean issue which has had a great influence on the governance and society as a whole. The criminalization of politics is the participation of criminals in politics which includes that criminals can contest in the elections and get elected as members of the Parliament and the State legislature. It takes place primarily due to the nexus between politicians and criminals. The root of criminalization of politics is the deep seated and lingering of corruption, lack of ethics and vision and mission among the political parties coupled with the urge to win elections and be in power by hook or crook. In India election tickets are distributed by the political parties among their candidates on the basis of money and not on the basis of education, intelligence and credibility. Most parties least care for the honesty and character of the candidates. The other sources of criminalization is the culture of vote bank systems in India and lack of governance.
2. Supreme Court Judgements
In the case of Public Interest Foundation & Ors v Union of India & Anr.[i], it was given that the voter is entitled to have an informed choice and if his/her right to get proper information is scuttled, then it may lead to destruction of democracy because then he/she will not be an informed voter and the information given by the candidates is not widely known in the constituency and the multitude of voters really do not come to know about the antecedents. But by doing so their right to information is hampered. Hence, by making a note of the same, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court comprising of Justice R.F. Nariman and Justice S. Ravindra Bhat[ii], delivered a judgment on the contempt petitions regarding the criminalization of politics in India and the noncompliance of the directions of the Constitution Bench of Supreme Court in Public Interest Foundation and Ors. v. Union of India and Anr. case. The Court here observed that the political parties offer no explanation as to why the candidates with pending criminal cases are selected as candidates in the first place and though these directions were given prior, they were not followed by the parties and in order to have a purity in the election process and noting the steady deterioration in politics over decades, with the decline accelerating in the last two decades and by looking at the statistics which show that ‘In 2004, 24% of the Members of Parliament had criminal cases pending against them. It shot up to 30% in 2009 and 34% in 2014. In 2019 as many as 43% of MPs had criminal cases pending against them,[iii] the Court issued another set of directions, for the purity in the election process, which are given below.
1) It shall be mandatory for the political parties to upload on their website the detailed information regarding all the candidates with pending criminal cases along with the reasons for such selection.
2) The reasons as to selection shall be with reference to the qualifications, achievements and merit of the candidate concerned, and not mere “winnability” at the polls.
3) This information shall also be published in: 1. A local vernacular newspaper and one national newspaper; 2. On the official social media platforms of the political party, including Facebook & Twitter.
4) These details shall be published within 48 hours of the selection of the candidate or not less than two weeks before the first date for filing of the nomination.
5) The political party concerned shall also submit a report of compliance with these directions with the Election Commission within 72 hours of the selection of the said candidate.
6) If a political party fails to submit such compliance report, then the Election Commission shall bring such non-compliance by the political party concerned to the notice of the Supreme Court.
3. Conclusion
The February 2020 Supreme Court judgment on criminalisation in politics has had far-reaching consequences for the Indian democracy and it is for the first time that this will be implemented in the coming Bihar elections in October 2020. This is a humongous step for our country and this helps at having a fair election. It is also for the first time that the political party and its leadership would have to publish the entire criminal history of their candidates for elections along with the reasons to field such suspected criminals.
Given the reluctance of the political parties to curb criminalization of politics and its growing detrimental effects on Indian democracy, Indian courts have now seriously consider banning people accused with serious criminal charges from contesting elections and though there might not be a big change in money power, or in buying of MLAs post-elections in the case of a hung Assembly. But all these steps are necessarily required, however insignificant they might seem. All the Supreme Court judgements on electoral reforms since 2002 are in fact the responses to the citizen initiatives. The strategy so far has been to methodically try and break down the solid wall of corruption, and this definitely was one step towards the breaking of the set process of the criminalization of politics
[i] Public Interest Litigation and others v Union of India and another (2019) 3 SCC 224. [ii] Rambabu Singh Thakur v Sunil Arora and others, 2020 SCC Online 178. [iii] Trilochan Sastry, Owning up to criminalization of politics, The Hindu, (Jul. 10, 2020,12:55P:M), https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/owning-up-to-criminalisation-in-politics/article32035186.ece
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