SC sounds caution over cases on politicians

The Supreme Court on Friday called for caution in punishing the political parties and the candidate for not disclosing criminal antecedents of the candidates as allegations of sedition and anti-national are often made with “political overtones”.

A bench headed by Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman called for guard as it reserved its order on a contempt petition by a BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay contending that the directions issued by the top court in 2018 mandating the candidates to disclose their criminal antecedents have not been complied with both in letter and spirit.

The court by its earlier order had also directed the political parties to make public the criminal antecedents, if any, of the candidates being fielded by them.

The Election Commission along with petitioner advocate Upadhyay filed a proposal for making candidates as well as political parties fielding them equally accountable for not disclosing their criminal antecedents.

The joint proposal seeks to make the political parties to publish the criminal antecedents of their candidates along with the reasons why they could not field better candidates.

This disclosure has to be in print as well as in electronic media.

The top court constitution bench by its 2018 verdict had mandated the candidates to make full disclosure of the criminal cases pending against them at the time of filing their nomination papers.

It had also mandated the political parties, nominating them, to disclose the criminal antecedents of the candidates being fielded by them on their websites.