Supreme Court moved to debar convicts from politics

An advocate and social activist has moved the Supreme Court on Thursday for a direction to debar the convicted persons from electoral politics for life, which he said is necessary to curb the corruption and criminalization, the greatest menace to our democracy and development.

The petitioner, Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, pointed out that 40 politicians involved in serious heinous crimes like loot, extortion, murder, rape, etc. were the members of the 11th Lok Sabha and 700 politicians of similar background were in the state legislatures.

He said even the political parties, owing to the glamour of political power and consequent benefits, do not hesitate in giving tickets to the criminals and do not object to their use in winning the elections. The criminalization of politics needs to be checked as top priority. Apart from terrorism and Naxalism, the most serious problem that our country is facing is the extensive corruption and criminalization of politics. At times concern has been expressed against this obnoxious and cancerous growth proving lethal to electoral politics. The purity and sanctity of the electoral process, sine qua non for a sound system of governance, appears to have become a forgotten thing in view of the entry of a large number of criminals in the Parliament and state Assemblies.

He said in the executive and judiciary sectors, when a person is convicted for any criminal offence, he/she is suspended automatically and debarred from his services for life. However, this rule is applied differently in case of convicted persons in legislature. Even after conviction and undergoing sentence, a convicted person can form his own political party and is eligible to become the office-bearer of any political party. In addition, a convicted person is eligible to contest the election and is eligible to become member of legislature and even a minister after the expiry of a six year period from the date of conviction.

He said the provisions (of disqualifications for membership of Parliament and state legislatures) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 is discriminatory and inconsistent with Article 14 (right to equality) and thus void. The petitioner submitted that decriminalization of the polity is impossible without debarring the convicted person from electoral politics for life, as done in case convicted person is from the executive and judiciary.

We cannot apply different rules to debar convicted person from judiciary, executive and legislature. Hence the present