Supreme Court seeks Centre, EC response on plea against freebies by political parties before polls

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a PIL for declaring that promise or distribution of irrational freebies from public fund before election unduly influenced the voters, shaking the roots of free and fair election.

The plea filed by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay contended such decisions by the political parties disturbed level playing field and vitiated the purity of election process, besides being violative of Articles 14, 162, 266(3) and 282 of the Constitution.

A bench presided over by Chief Justice N V Ramana agreed that the matter was serious and sought a reply from the Union government and the poll panel within four weeks, after hearing senior advocate Vikas Singh on behalf of Upadhyay.

The bench decided to examine the matter, referring to its previous judgement of 2013 wherein the top court had asked the Centre and the EC to regulate freebies offered by the political parties during the elections.

"How could this be controlled? We can't legislate. Yes, (but) it is a serious issue," the bench, also comprising Justices A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli said.

The bench further noted that the freebie budget was going beyond the regular budget and sometimes, freebies ensured, it is not a level playing field.

"Within the limited scope, what we have done is we (earlier) directed EC to frame guidelines. Subsequently, I think all they did is they called one meeting of the political parties, don't know what happened in that," the CJI said.

The top court's bench of Justices P Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi (both since retired) had directed the EC to frame guidelines on regulating freebies offered through manifestoes by the political parties.

Upadhyay's plea filed through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey sought a direction to Election Commission to seize election symbol and deregister political parties, which promised to distribute irrational freebies from public funds.

It claimed political parties arbitrarily promises or irrational freebies for wrongful gain and to lure voters in their favour, which is analogous to bribery and undue influences.

The injury to the citizens is extremely large because Punjab needs Rs 12,000 crore per month to fulfil the political promises if AAP comes in power; Rs 25,000 crore per month if SAD comes in power and Rs 30,000 crore if Congress comes in power, though GST collection is 1400 crore only, it pointed out.

"In fact, after debt repayment, Punjab Government is not able pay even salaries-pensions, then how will it provide freebies? The bitter truth is that Punjab’s debt is increasing every subsequent year. State’s outstanding debt has increased to Rs 77,000 crore, with Rs 30,000 crore accumulating in present financial year itself," it claimed.

The petitioner said that the time is not too far away when one party will say that “We will cook food for you in your residence” and other will say that “We will not only cook, but also feed you” as each party tried to undo each other in terms of populist promises.

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