'1 in every 14 lawmaker had criminal charge'

One in every 5 candidates who contested the Lok Sabha or Assembly elections had a criminal record while one in every 9 had serious charges against them, an analysis of candidates in elections for a period of ten years since 2004 says.

The analysis for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections between 2004 and 2013 done by Law Commission showed that among the winners, one in every 14 had a criminal charge.

The Law Commission analysis was part of the Supreme Court's Tuesday judgement that refused to disallow those chargesheeted from contesting elections but said the Parliament must make a law to check the rising number of people with criminal antecedents from entering politics.

The Supreme Court spoke about a "disturbing" trend highlighted by the Law Commission analysis.

The percentage of winners with criminal cases pending is higher than the percentage of candidates without such backgrounds, it noted.

"On an average, only 12% of candidates with a clean record win and 23% of candidates with some kind of criminal record win which implies that candidates charged with a crime actually fare better in elections than the clean candidates," it said.

The Latest figures by Association for Democratic Rights (ADR) showed 993 or 20% of present MPs and MLAs have serious criminal charges pending against them.

The statistics, which came after the analysis of election affidavits of 4,852 of the total 4,896 MPs and MLAs in 2017, says that 87 lawmakers have murder charges while 190 have attempt to murder charges.

The Law Commission analysis showed that 11,063 (18%) of the 62,847 candidates in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections since 2004 had criminal cases pending against them.

Of these, 5,253 (8.4%) had serious charges.

"152 candidates had 10 or more serious cases pending, 14 candidates had 40 or more such cases and 5 candidates had 50 or more cases against them," it said.

The candidates with serious cases together had 13,984 serious charges against them— 31% were cases of murder and other murder related offences, 4% were cases of rape and offences against women, 7% related to kidnapping and abduction, 7% related to robbery and dacoity, 14% related to forgery and counterfeiting including of government seals and 5% related to breaking the law during elections.

Of the 5,253 candidates with serious criminal charges, 1,187 went on to winning the elections they contested, which was 13.5% of the 8,882 winners.

"It is clear from this data that about one-third of the elected candidates at the Parliament and state Assembly levels in India have some form of criminal taint and also that the data elsewhere suggests that one-fifth of MLAs have pending cases which have proceeded to the stage of charges being framed against them by a court at the time of their election," the Supreme Court said quoting the Law Commission.