SC defers plea to stop convicts from forming political parties

New Delhi | The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred to August 11 a plea to restrain convicted persons from forming political parties and holding posts in them.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar refused the final hearing on the PIL filed by lawyer Ashwini Updhyay.

“I do not want to reserve any more judgement,” the CJI, who demits office May 13, said.

The bench then posted the case's final hearing on August 11 and allowed the parties to file written submissions.

The PIL, filed in 2017, sought barring convicts from forming political parties and becoming office-bearers during the period they were disqualified.

The bench previously wondered how convicted persons, who are barred from electoral politics, could decide candidates in polls and ensure maintenance of probity in public life.

"Here is a person who is convicted and disqualified from contesting an election. How can he decide the candidates for election? How can the purity of democracy be maintained?" the bench asked.

The plea claimed 40 per cent of the legislators were either convicted or faced trial.

"That is why there is resistance. They do not want probity," it added.

The top court on December 1, 2017 sought the response of the Centre and the Election Commission on the PIL and agreed to examine the constitutional validity of section 29A of the Representation of the People Act (RPA), 1951 (RPA), which deals with the power of the poll panel to register a political party.

The plea, as a result, sought a direction to declare Section 29A of the RPA as "arbitrary, irrational and ultra-vires" to the Constitution and to authorise the poll panel to register and unregister political parties.

The petitioner also sought a direction to the Election Commission to frame guidelines to decriminalise the electoral system and ensure inner party democracy, as proposed by the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution.

Even a person who has been convicted of heinous crimes like murder, rape, smuggling, money laundering, loot, sedition, or dacoity, can form a political party and become its president or office bearer, it added.

The petition named several top political leaders who have been convicted or have charges framed against them and are holding top political posts and "wielding political power".

The proliferation of political parties, the plea said, had become a major concern as Section 29A of the RP Act allows a small group of people to form a political party by making a very simple declaration.

It also claimed that in 2004, the poll panel proposed an amendment to Section 29A, authorising it to issue apt orders regulating the registration or deregistration of political parties.