New Delhi: The Supreme Court has fined eight political parties with a penalty of one lakh and five lakhs for not complying with its orders over disclosure of criminal antecedents of candidates on their websites, newspapers and social media in Bihar state assembly elections. The parties include Janata Dal United, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Lok Janshakti Party, Indian National Congress, Bhartiya Janata Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Nationalist Congress Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India and Rashtriya Lok Samta Party.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Nationalist Congress Party have been directed to pay Rs 5 lakh and others have been directed to pay Rs 1 lakh in an account created by the ECI within a period of eight weeks. The CPI (M) and NCP did not follow the directions at all, failed to produce any details, so they have been penalised with more amount.
As per the amicus curie, Janata Dal published the criminal antecedents in a vague and mechanical manner and has not filed any counter affidavit to controvert this fact. Rashtriya Janata Dal and Indian National Congress have given 'winnability' as the reason for selecting candidates despite their criminal antecedents. Lok Janshakti, Indian National Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Communist Party of India published the criminal antecedents in low circulating newspapers and that too in a vague and mechanical manner. Some of them also failed to publish about all of their candidates.
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The court said that Bihar elections were the first elections to be conducted after its orders so it has taken a lenient view and warned the parties to be more cautious. It asked ECI also to inform the court promptly in future so that action can be taken. Court observed that the "menace of criminalization in the Indian political system is growing day by day" and people with criminal antecedents should not be the lawmakers.
"This court, time and again, has appealed to the lawmakers of the country to rise to the occasion and take steps for bringing out necessary amendment so that the involvement of persons with criminal antecedents and polity is prohibited. All these appeals have fallen on the deaf ears. The political parties refuse to wake up from deep slumber. However, in view of the constitutional scheme of separation of powers, though we desire that something urgently requires to be done in the matter, our hands are tied and we cannot transgress into the area reserved for the legislative arm of the state. We can only appeal to the conscience of the lawmakers and hope that they will wake up soon and carry out a major surgery for weeding out the malignancy of criminalization in politics," read the court's order.
The court has asked the political parties to publish about the criminal antecedents on their home page of the website so that it is easier for voters to get information. It will also become necessary now to have on the homepage caption which states "candidates with criminal antecedents". Further, it has directed ECI to create a mobile app which would contain information regarding candidates' criminal antecedents so that voter knows about the politician in "one stroke".
Court has ordered EC to carry out an extensive awareness programme to make the voter aware of his right to know and the availability of information regarding contesting candidates. This has to be done on social media, websites TV ads, prime time debates etc. A fund for this has to be created within 4 weeks. "For the aforesaid purposes the ECI is also directed to create a separate cell which will also monitor the required compliances so that this court can be appraised promptly of non-compliance by any political party of the directions contained in this court's orders as fleshed out by the ECI in instructions, letters and circulars issued in this behalf," said the court.
The political parties need to publish the criminal antecedents within 48 hours of the selection of their candidates and not prior to two weeks before the first date of filing of nominations which was earlier ordered by the court. "We reiterate that if such political party fails to submit such compliance report with the ECI, the ECI shall bring non-compliance by the political party to the notice of this court as being in contempt of this court's orders/ directions, which shall in future be viewed very seriously," ordered the court.
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