Crime And Politics

Context: The recent Supreme Court anguish on parties’ inaction on criminalisation is welcome — but may not be enough.

Background: Recently the Supreme Court has made a new move in its bid to call into question the rising tide of criminalisation in Indian politics.

• The court has imposed fines of Rs 1 lakh on the BJP, the Congress and the JD(U), among others, for failing to comply with its orders regarding complete disclosure of their candidates’ criminal history. 
• The CPI(M) and the Nationalist Congress Party were fined Rs 5 lakh for complete failure to comply with any of its mandates.

Measures taken

• The Election Commission of India (ECI) has created a phone app (cVIGIL) to display the detailed criminal history of any contesting candidate.
• The SC has sought to add strength to the Election Commission to combat criminalisation.
• Fastracking: The Supreme Court had sent a directive to this effect as far back as 2014, directing that cases against political candidates must be completed within a year, failing which the matter should be reported to the Chief Justices of the respective High Court.

Challenges in tackling criminalisation of politics

• Political drag: Political parties in India have always been reluctant to introduce changes to combat criminalisation, and the excuses they have given for doing so have remained nearly unchanged since Independence. 
  • “Winnability” of candidates is the first reason. This is an attempt by the party to absolve itself of all blame and put the onus of sending a criminally charged candidate to Parliament solely on the voter.
  • The other reason is summarised by the maxim of Indian law, which is that any accused is innocent until proven guilty (most criminally accused politicians are victims of “vendetta politics”). However, this argument falls flat when we look the 3.3 lakh undertrials out of 4.7 lakh prisoners who are completely stripped off their fundamental rights. 
  • An “innocent” undertrial cannot vote, but a man charge-sheeted for murder can contest election from jail.
• Judicial reluctance: The SC has rejected the suggestion of senior advocate and amicus curiae KV Viswanathan to direct the Election Commission to bar political parties that fail to comply with criminalisation protocols by using its authority derived from Clause 16A of the Election Symbols Order.
  • While the SC has annulled the appointment of Central Vigilance Commissioner on the ground of a pending criminal case, person charge-sheeted with murders can become legislators, is in violation of Article 14.

Way Forward:

• Checking vendetta politics: ECI has suggested some safeguards against vendetta politics
  • First, only offences that carry an imprisonment of at least 5 years are to be considered. 
  • The case against the candidate should have been filed at least six months before the scheduled elections for it to be considered. 
  • A competent court must have framed the charges. An alternative solution would be to try cases against political candidates in fast-track courts.
• Constant monitoring of criminal records: