Voters can’t be mute spectators: SC

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 25

Expressing concern over criminalisation of politics, the Supreme Court on Tuesday reminded lawmakers of their constitutional pledge and responsibility to ensure that the existing political framework did not get tainted with the “evil of corruption”.

“However, despite this heavy mandate prescribed by our Constitution, our democracy has seen a steady increase in the level of criminalisation that has been creeping into the Indian polity,” a five-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra lamented.

“This unsettlingly increasing trend of criminalisation of politics, to which our country has been a witness, tends to disrupt the constitutional ethos and strikes at the very root of our democratic form of government by making our citizenry suffer at the hands of those who are nothing but a liability to our country,” said the Bench.

While refusing to debar tainted politicians from contesting polls, the Bench recommended to Parliament to enact a law to deal with the malaise.

“We are inclined to say so, for in a constitutional democracy, criminalisation of politics is an extremely disastrous and lamentable situation. The citizens in a democracy cannot be compelled to stand as silent, deaf and mute spectators to corruption by projecting themselves as helpless. The voters cannot be allowed to resign to their fate,” the top court said.

The Bench — which referred to the 1993 NN Vohra Committee report on the problem of criminalisation of politics — said: “Criminalisation of politics was never an unknown phenomenon in the Indian political system, but its presence was seemingly felt in its strongest form during the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts which was the result of a collaboration of a diffused network of criminal gangs, police and customs officials and their political patrons.”

The Bench, which also included Justices RF Nariman, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra, said: “The tremors of the said attacks shook the entire nation and as a result of the outcry, a commission was constituted to study the problem of criminalisation of politics and the nexus among criminals, politicians and bureaucrats,” it said.

The Vohra committee had referred to several observations made by official agencies, including CBI, IB and RAW, which unanimously expressed the opinion that criminal network was virtually running a parallel government, it said, adding that the panel had also taken note of criminal gangs that carried out their activities under the aegis of political parties and government functionaries.

The committee had expressed concern that several criminals had been elected to local bodies, state Assemblies and Parliament over the years, it noted. The Bench said: “Disclosure of antecedents makes the election fair and voting also gets sanctified. Such a right is paramount for a democracy.”