Janjivan Bureau /New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Tuesday refrained from debarring politicians with criminal charges from contesting polls but asked political parties to advertise the criminal antecedents of such candidates in the media to enable voters to make an informed choice.
A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said it expected Parliament to enact a law to check criminalisation of politics.
“The nation eagerly waits for such a legislation…society has a right to be governed by better people,” said the Bench which also included Justice RF Nariman, Justice AM Khanwilkar, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Indu Malhotra.
Criminals should be kept at bay, the Bench said.
The Bench said each candidate filing nomination papers would declare to the EC his criminal antecedents in bold letters.
Such candidates would also declare such information to the political parties they belong to and the party in question would advertise his/her criminal antecedents thrice in newspapers to enable voters to make an informed decision.
The verdict came on a PIL filed in 2011 by Public Interest Foundation which demanded debarring politicians facing serious criminal charges in order to de-criminalise Indian politics.
The Bench had reserved the verdict on the issue on August 28.
Ruling out any judicial legislation to check criminals entering Parliament and state legislatures, the Bench had last month wondered if it could ask the Election Commission not to allot symbols to recognised political parties’ candidates facing serious criminal charges even as the NDA government vehemently opposed it.
The Bench had said it would consider directing the Election Commission to ask political parties to get their members disclose criminal cases against them to enable voters to know about “alleged crooks” attempting to enter the legislature.
Attorney General KK Venugopal had told the Bench during the hearing that Article 102 provided for Parliament to make law on the issue and hence the top court should leave it to the wisdom of the parliamentarians. He had reminded the Bench of the concept of separation of powers.
“Everybody understands that. We cannot direct Parliament to make a law. The question is what we can do to stem the rot,” the Bench had commented.
