EC supports lifetime ban on convicts from contesting

Most reforms pending or have not been approved, EC tells court

STATES IN AFFIDAVIT TO SC

REGRETTING THAT that its proposals for electoral reforms and decriminalisation of politics remain pending before the government, the Election Commission has supported in Supreme Court a demand to bar convicted politicians for life from contesting polls.

The EC, in its short affidavit submitted before the court, has said that the plea made by PIL petitioner Ashwini Upadhyay is “not adversarial” in seeking directives for ensuring that trials of MPS and Mlasareconcludedwithinayear and that such convicts are prohibited for life from the political process. “...the answering respondent (EC) supports the cause espoused by the petitioner,” stated the affidavit, filed by EC Director Vijay Kumar Pandey.

The matter is likely to be listed for hearing next on Friday.

The existing legal regime under the Representation of the People Act lays down that a politician convicted and sentenced to a jail term of two years or more shall be disqualified from contesting polls for six years from the date of his release from prison after conclusion of the term.

The poll panel has said it is “alive to the issues that concern the conduct of free and fair elections and functioning of healthy democracy and as such asserting for bringing in electoral reforms which further the cause of free and fair elections.”

In this regard, the EC added, it has already submitted detailed