CASE TO DECRIMINALISE POLITICS IN ITS FINAL PHASE IN SUPREME COURT

Judgement in the case will help decriminalise Indian politics in a major way.

APIL filed in August 2016 in the Supreme Court of India, the hearing of which is in the final phase, is likely to give a massive push towards the decriminalisation of Indian politics when the judgement is pronounced in the coming days.

The PIL, filed by Supreme Court lawyer and BJP leader, Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, had sought setting up of exclusive courts in every district to complete the cases pending against politicians, within one year and permanently bar convicted politicians from contesting elections, unlike in the present when a convicted politician is barred for a limited time and that too only when he has been convicted for an offence whose punishment is more than two years’ imprisonment. As of now, more than 4,500 cases are pending against MPS and MLAS all over India.

In the latest hearing of the case, which took place last month, the Central government had showed its “unwillingness” to bar convicted politicians permanently from contesting polls while responding to Upadhyay’s argument on why politicians—who in various court judgements have been considered as the “supreme public servant”—should not be barred from contesting elections forever, if a bureaucrat or a judge was permanently removed from the service if he or she was convicted for an offence.

The PIL filed by Upadhyay, the hearing of which gathered speed last year, has already led to anxious moments for politicians against whom cases, primarily corruption related, are pending.

Last year in October, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had written to the CJI S.A. Bobde, levelling serious allegations against the second senior most judge of the Supreme Court, Justice N.V. Ramana. The letter by Reddy, in which he also named other sitting judges of Andhra Pradesh High Court, came after a threejudge bench of the Supreme Court, presided over by Justice Ramana, who is hearing the PIL filed by Upadhyay, ordered a time-bound trial of pending cases against MPS and MLAS. The Supreme Court bench also directed the Chief Justices of the respective High Courts to ensure urgent listings of such cases.

As per a recent judgement in a separate case by the Andhra Pradesh HC, Reddy is an accused in more than 30 cases, out of which 10 cases have been registered by the CBI and “several” cases that have been lodged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). This judgement by Justice Rakesh Kumar, who recently retired, has stated the cases of IPC against Reddy have been pending since 2011 and yet no charges have been framed in these cases, while asking “Is it not a mockery with the system?” According to records placed in the court by amicus curiae of the Supreme Court in this PIL, Vijay Hansaria, there are about 175 cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and 14 cases are pending under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, against sitting/former legislators (MPS and MLAS). These are in addition to the 4,442 criminal cases indicated to be pending against politicians that were presented before the court in the earlier hearings.

In what can be seen as an indication of the power wielded by tainted politicians, the Supreme Court, while hearing this case on 4 November last year, quoting the records that it received from various High Courts, said: “The High Court of Kerala has specifically placed on record that the police officials are reluctant to arrest and produce the legislators. The same issue is also being faced by the Calcutta High Court.”

As per the latest observation made by the Justice Ramana-led bench, the amicus curiae, on the basis of records gathered from the respective High Courts of the country, also found that: (a) There is no uniformity as to the setting up of Special Courts for MPS/ MLAS throughout the country. In the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and West Bengal, there is one Special Court for all cases against MPS/MLAS. In the