SC asks EC to come out with framework to stop criminalisation of politics

The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Election Commission to come out with a framework to stop criminalisation of politics in national interest, as the poll panel said the top court's 2018 direction to the candidates to declare their criminal antecedent in the media has not helped curb the malice.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and S Ravindra Bhat asked the EC to work out the mechanism in this regard within a week.

The EC suggested that the instead of publishing the criminal cases, the political parties should be asked to not to give tickets to candidates with criminal antecedents.

The court had on March 29, 2019 issued notice to the Union government and the Election Commission on a plea by Delhi BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay for contempt action against the officials for failing to notify leading newspapers and TV channels where the candidates in elections were to publish the criminal cases pending against them.

The petitioner had contended that the 'Election Symbol Order & Model Code of Conduct' was not duly amended to make provisions for it.

On September 25, 2018, a five-judge bench had ordered that if a candidate was contesting an election on the ticket of a particular party, he/she was required to inform the party about the criminal cases pending against him/her and the concerned political party shall be obligated to put up on its website information pertaining to candidates having criminal antecedents.

"The candidate as well as the concerned political party shall issue a declaration in the widely circulated newspapers in the locality about the antecedents of the candidate and also give wide publicity in the electronic media. When we say wide publicity, we mean that same shall be done at least thrice after filing of nomination papers," the court had ordered.