New Delhi: Fourteen political parties have filed a petition in the Supreme Court highlighting the rise in the coercive criminal processes against opposition leaders and other citizens who dissent or disagree with the Union Government.
"Investigating agencies such as CBI and ED are being increasingly deployed in a selective and targeted manner with a view to completely crush political dissent and upend the fundamental premises of a representative democracy," read the plea.
The petition points out that only 23 convictions have happened under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) even when the number of cases registered with ED has increased from 2019 in 2013-14, 981 in 2020-21 to 1180 in 2021-22.
"Between 2004-14, of the 72 political leaders investigated by the CBI,43 (Under 60%) were from the opposition of the time. Now, the same figure has risen to over 95%. The same pattern is reflected in ED's investigations as well, with the proportion of Opposition leaders from the total number of politicians investigated rising from 54% (before 2014) to 95% (after 2014)," read the plea.
The political parties have sought certain guidelines from the apex court governing arrest, remand, and bail of persons in offenses (which may or may not be punishable with imprisonment for above seven years) not involving serious bodily harm (thereby obviously excluding homicide, rape,terrorism etc).
For arrest and remand, the political parties have prayed that the triple test (whether a person is a flight risk, there is a reasonable apprehension of the tampering of evidence or of the influencing of witnesses) be used by ED, police, and courts in offenses except those that involve serious bodily violence. If the conditions are not satisfied then interrogation should be done at fixed hours or house arrest be used to meet the demands of the investigation.
For bail, the parties have prayed that 'bail as a rule, jail as exception' be followed by all the courts. The plea says that fulfillment of these prayers will guarantee personal liberty that is entrenched in Article 21 of the Constitution.
The plea has been filed by INC, DMK, RJD, BRS, TMC, AAP, NCP, Shiv Sena(UBT), JMM, JD(U), CPI(M), CPI, Samajwadi Party, J&K National Conference. The matter was mentioned on Friday morning before the CJI DY Chandrachud-led bench which had agreed to list the matter for hearing on April 5.
