Before SC: Must ‘netas’ declare every offence?

New Delhi, August 29 

The Supreme Court today stayed a Patna High Court order setting aside the election of BJP MP Chhedi Paswan and said it would examine whether politicians need to mandatorily declare every offence or only the heinous crimes registered against them at the time of nomination.

The court made the observation as it stayed the order setting aside the election of Paswan, the Lok Sabha MP from Sasaram (reserved) constituency, for “suppressing” details of criminal cases pending against him.

Paswan had defeated the then Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar in 2014.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

“We have to go in depth. It’s a serious issue. We have to see whether every offence or only serious offences are covered under the earlier judgment of the court,” a Bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and PC Pant said.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Paswan, said he had three cases against him, of which have punishments of six months while the third was for blocking of traffic in a protest.

He said that non-disclosure cannot be said to be amounting to “corrupt practices”.

CS Vaidyanathan, appearing for one Ganga Mishra, said Paswan has declared the offence in his 2010 poll affidavit but did not do so in the 2014 general elections.

He said that as per the earlier judgment of the apex court, every individual contesting an election has to mandatorily declare all offences. “The question here is that criminal cases are lodged against a politician for blocking the road in protest in which a chargesheet has been filed but charges are not framed. Can this suppression of facts by a politician during nomination deprived voters to make an informed choice?” the Bench asked.

“Does this non-disclosure of criminal antecedents amount to exercise of ‘undue influence’?” it said, posting the matter for January. — PTI