Declining morality? Who is responsible?

Look in the Mirror

“There should be morality. We cannot live without morality,” said Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai recently. The CM also said, “One needs to behave in a manner that will not hurt sentiments.” One hopes that he was calling for introspection amongst the political class as “escalating criminalisation of politics is certainly hurting the sentiments of most, if not all, citizens”, as veteran journalist Ammu Joseph wrote recently.

Yes, the moral sentiments of most citizens are hurt when politicians garland those convicted of lynching and rape when they come out of jails. Our moral sensibility is hurt when politicians call for dealing “with an iron hand” against the youth of a specific religion when they indulge in moral policing but the same iron hand goes missing when vigilantes of their own faith assault innocent individuals for merely socialising with those of another faith. We are disturbed morally when politicians allow their own party supporters to roam around free and take no action after they threaten dire consequences and give open calls for violence against those with whom they differ, thus posing a direct threat to our democracy and the rule of law.

Our sentiments are hurt when those facing criminal charges for heinous crimes, including murder, rape, dacoity, robbery, kidnapping, crimes against women, bribery, corruption, money laundering and many more, are given party tickets by the same moralistic politicians. If they valued morality so much, why do they give such persons tickets and also seek to withdraw all such criminal charges against their party MLAs and MPs as soon as they come to power? The past three Lok Sabhas have seen the entry of an increasing number of legislators with criminal backgrounds or pending cases against them. A total of 363 MPs and MLAs, including cabinet ministers have declared criminal cases against them, a recent analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) found.

An argument voiced for giving party tickets to those with criminal charges against them is that “a person is innocent until proven guilty.” Former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi never tires of pointing out the discrimination between citizens inherent in this argument. He points out that there were 4.78 lakh prisoners (as of December 2019) of whom 3.3 lakh were under trial, i.e., not yet proven guilty. Yet, their fundamental rights — their right to liberty and dignity and freedom of movement and occupation — are curbed completely. He finds this to be a blatant double standard and a clear violation of Article 14, which guarantees to all citizens equality before the law. He points out that even a peon cannot be appointed if even a minor criminal case is pending against him. But a person charge-sheeted for murder or rape can become a legislator and even a minister, that too when contesting elections is not even a fundamental, but only a statutory, right.

Why have political parties, charged with the responsibility of upholding constitutional principles, never bothered to amend the law to remove this glaring “inequality before the law” if they are committed to the Constitution and are also bothered about morality?

In 2011, an NGO had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court asking it, under Article 32 of the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act of 1951 (RP Act), to disqualify candidates who have serious criminal charges framed against them by a court. This is because, under Sections 8(1), (2) and (3) of the RP Act, disqualification happens only upon conviction and not when charges are framed for certain offences. In 2013, the court requested the Law Commission to submit a report on this. The Law Commission, in its 244th Report, recommended that since cases take a long time for conclusion, the framing of charges itself, which is anyway supervised by the courts, should result in disqualification for election.

The matter was referred to a Constitution Bench which, while delivering its verdict in 2018, stated that it was not for the courts but the legislature to bring about changes to the law and advised that Parliament should enact a law to ensure that persons facing serious criminal charges were prevented from entering the electoral arena and becoming lawmakers. Why have our moralistic political parties neither heeded the recommendation of the Law Commission nor the direction of the SC to bring in the necessary amendments, not only to remove the inequality before law, but also to curb criminalisation of politics, if they were so concerned about morality in public life?

Further, the Supreme Court heard a petition in late 2017 which sought a ‘lifetime ban’ on convicted and charge-sheeted MPs and MLAs in electoral politics. Section 8 of the RP Act currently debars convicted politicians from contesting elections for a period of six years only, following the date of release from prison. The PIL argued that while judges and public servants are dismissed from service and are banned from government service ‘for life’ once convicted, the same principle should apply to people’s representatives as well. This was another case where there was discrimination between public servants and politicians which violated Article 14 of the Constitution on equality before the law. The Election Commission submitted an affidavit to the court supporting a lifetime ban on convicted politicians contesting elections, but political parties have done nothing about this ‘inequality before the law’ either.

So, who is responsible for the moral decadence we are seeing in society and who needs to display greater commitment to moral values -- the general law-abiding citizenry who fear breaking moral norms, or the politicians following double standards, treating equal citizens unequally, setting different moral and legal standards for themselves and ignoring constitutional principles, thereby hurting the sentiments of the majority of citizens, but preaching morality to us?

(The writer is a State Coordinator of the Association for Democratic Reforms)