The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that political parties must publish criminal records of their election candidates within 48 hours of selection, Live Law reported.
The court modified its judgement from February 13 last year, which said that the criminal history of election candidates must be made public either within 48 hours of selection or two weeks prior to the first date of filing of nomination papers for an election.
The Supreme Court had added that political parties must publish the records in one regional and one national newspaper and also on Twitter and Facebook, PTI reported.
In November 2020, a lawyer filed a contempt petition before the Supreme Court against the Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and political parties in Bihar for allegedly violating the order to publish the criminal history of candidates who fought the Assembly polls, according to the Hindustan Times.
“Political parties mainly published the criminal antecedents of their candidates on their websites and in some less circulated newspapers and some in a limited manner on social media but nobody got it published in any national newspapers as directed by the apex court,” Brajesh Singh, the petitioner, had said, according to the newspaper.
The court had decided to examine Singh’s petition in February this year, The Hindu reported.
A bench headed by Justice Rohinton F Nariman had issued a notice to Arora, Bihar Chief Electoral Officer HR Srinivas, Jagada Nand Singh, the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Bihar president, Janata Dal (United) General Secretary KC Tyagi, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala and Bharatiya Janata Party’s BL Santosh.
The top court was hearing a petition filed by lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, seeking a direction to debar those convicted MLAs and MPs from contesting elections for life.
“No criminal case against sitting (former) MPs and MLAs can be withdrawn by the State Govts without prior orders from the state high court,” a three-judge bench of the apex court, headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana and also comprising Justices Surya Kant and Vineet Saran said today.
The bench also ordered that special courts judges, hearing cases against the MPs and MLAs, will not be transferred until further orders.
It directed the registrar generals of all the high courts to provide information, in a particular format, about the cases decided by special courts against the lawmakers. It also sought the details of pending cases and their stages before the trial courts.
The Congress, the BJP, the Rashtriya Janta Dal, the Janata Dal (United), the Communist Party of India and the Lok Jan Shakti Party have been fined Rs 1 lakh each for partial non-compliance of the court’s order, reported Bar and Bench. The court also fined Rs 5 lakh each on the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Nationalist Congress Party for total non-compliance.