September 26,2018:
On Tuesday, Supreme Court directed that the Election candidates, after filing their nominations, should repeatedly make declarations in print and the electronic media at Constituency level about any criminal antecedents while Bench stopped short of debarring those charged with heinous crimes from contesting polls.Apex Court recommended that the Parliament urgently enact legislation to prevent tainted criminals from becoming lawmakers and while it did not change the law, it hit on the innovative method of getting candidates and their parties to publicise pending criminal cases that often remain encased in election affidavits.
SC's Constitution Bench of comprising of CJI Dipak Misra and Justice R F Nariman, Justice A M Khanwilkar, Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice Indu Malhotra stated that “self publicity” would help curb criminalisation of the politics.
Supreme Court termed criminalisation of politics a termite eating into the edifice of constitutional governance.
CJI Dipak Misra concluded that,“The country feels agonised when money and muscle power become the supreme power. Substantial efforts have to be undertaken to cleanse the polluted stream of politics by prohibiting people with criminal antecedents so that they do not even conceive of the idea of entering into politics”.
While writing a 100-page unanimous judgment for Bench, CJI Misra stated that, “In a multi-party democracy, where members are elected on party lines and are subject to party discipline, we recommend to Parliament to bring out a strong law whereby it is mandatory for political parties to revoke membership of persons against whom charges are framed in heinous and grievous offences and not to set up such persons in elections, both for Parliament and state assemblies".
Read Judgment @LatestLaws.com:
Supreme Court Judgment on Politicians with Criminal Cases (Download PDF)
Supreme Court Judgment on Politicians With Criminal Cases by Latest Laws Team on Scribd
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