The Supreme Court had on November 25 directed the Election Commission to pass an order to prevent people with criminal records from contesting elections.
New Delhi| The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed concern over the criminalization of politics, saying that the number of candidates with criminal history has increased in the last four elections in the country. The court said in a crucial order on election reforms: All political parties should state the reason for the selection of candidates with the criminal background on their website.
Election Commission should be informed about the cases filed against the candidates. In the event of non-compliance of the order, the Commission may take action on the political parties as per its authority. At the same time, the parties should publish criminal data in newspapers and share it on Facebook / Twitter. BJP leader and lawyer Ashwani Upadhyay had petitioned the Supreme Court to stop criminalization in politics.
The Supreme Court had on November 25 directed the Election Commission to pass an order to prevent people with criminal records from contesting elections, so that within three months political parties could be prevented from giving tickets to leaders with felonious backgrounds. Then the bench of CJI SA Bobde and Justice BR Gawai issued the order refusing to consider Ashwini Upadhyay’s public interest petition.
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Upadhyay demanded that the parties be barred from giving election tickets to people with a tainted image. At the same time, the order to publish the criminal records of the candidate in the newspapers should be ordered.
In the petition, Upadhyay had said that according to data published by ADR, criminalization of politics in India has increased and criminal cases against 24% MPs are pending. After analyzing 7,810 candidates in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, it was found that 1,158 or 15% of them reported criminal cases. Serious crime cases were registered against 610 or 8% of these candidates. Similarly, out of 8,163 candidates in 2014, 1398 had reported criminal cases and 889 of them were pending charges against them.
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