Losing patience on criminalisation of politics: Top court

IT SAID THAT ITS EXHORTATIONS TO LAWMAKERS FOR AMENDING LAWS TO PROHIBIT INVOLVEMENT OF PERSONS WITH ANTECEDENTS ‘HAVE FALLEN ON THE DEAF EARS’

The nation continues to wait and is losing patience, said the Supreme Court on Tuesday as it made an “appeal to the conscience of the lawmakers hoping that they will wake up soon and carry out a major surgery for weeding out the malignancy of criminalisation in politics,” which it said, is “growing day by day.”

Expressing disgruntlement over non-compliance by various political parties with its 2020 judgment on disclosure of criminal antecedents of the candidates being put up by them, the top court lamented that its exhortations to the law-makers for amending laws to prohibit involvement of persons with criminal antecedents “have fallen on the deaf ears.”

“The political parties refuse to wake up from deep slumber ... Cleansing the polluted stream of politics is obviously not one of the immediate pressing concerns of the legislative branch of government,” said the bench of justices Rohinton F Nariman and BR Gavai, maintaining that the court’s hands are tied due to constitutional scheme of separation of powers that entitles only Parliament to make laws and courts cannot legislate. The court’s remarks came as it held Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Janta Dal (United), Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) and Congress, among others, guilty of contempt for not complying with its directions regarding complete disclosure of criminal antecedents of the candidates put up by them during the Bihar assembly elections in 2020 and imposed a fine of ₹1 lakh each.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Nationalist Congress Party were asked to cough up Rs 5 lakh each for not following the court’s directions “at all”.

The bench said that the political parties, which also included Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and Communist Party of India, shall deposit the money in a fund that will be created by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for an “extensive awareness campaign to make every voter aware about his right to know and the availability of information regarding criminal antecedents of all contesting candidates.”

It directed the ECI to create a dedicated mobile application containing information about criminal antecedents of the candidates so as to enable voters access information conveniently.