{"id":225562,"date":"2020-02-13T12:05:03","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T06:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=225562"},"modified":"2020-02-17T12:48:10","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T07:18:10","slug":"sc-directs-political-parties-to-publish-criminal-antecedents-of-candidates-give-reasons-for-their-selection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2020\/02\/13\/sc-directs-political-parties-to-publish-criminal-antecedents-of-candidates-give-reasons-for-their-selection\/","title":{"rendered":"SC directs political parties to publish criminal antecedents of candidates & give reasons for their selection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court<\/strong>: \u00a0<\/strong>In a major judgment today, a bench of RF Nariman and S. Ravindra Bhat, JJ has directed all political parties to upload on their website details of pending criminal cases against candidates contesting polls, noting that there has been an alarming increase in criminalisation of politics.<\/p>\n

The Court said\u00a0political parties will also have to upload reasons for selecting candidates with pending criminal cases on their website<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Court was hearing the contempt petition which brought the Court\u2019s attention to a disregard of the directions of a Constitution Bench of this Court in Public Interest Foundation v. Union of India, (2019) 3 SCC 224 which too cognisance of the increasing criminalisation of politics in India and the lack of information about such criminalisation amongst the citizenry and issued various directions in that regard.<\/p>\n

It was brought to the Court\u2019s notice that there has been an alarming increase in the incidence of criminals in politics. In 2004, 24% of the Members of Parliament had criminal cases pending against them; in 2009, that went up to 30%; in 2014 to 34%; and in 2019 as many as 43% of MPs had criminal cases pending against them. The Court, hence, issued the following directions:<\/p>\n

1) It shall be mandatory for political parties [at the Central and State election level] to upload on their website detailed information regarding individuals with pending criminal cases (including the nature of the offences, and relevant particulars such as whether charges have been framed, the concerned Court, the case number etc.) who have been selected as candidates, along with the reasons for such selection, as also as to why other individuals without criminal antecedents could not be selected as candidates.<\/p>\n

2) The reasons as to selection shall be with reference to the qualifications, achievements and merit of the candidate concerned, and not mere \u201cwinnability\u201d at the polls.<\/p>\n

3) This information shall also be published in:<\/p>\n