Court tells Indian parties to come clean on criminal MPs

India's Supreme Court has ordered all political parties to publish on their websites, social media accounts and in national newspapers the details of criminal cases pending against candidates representing them.

In its four-page judgment issued on Feb 13, the court, concerned with a rise in the number of candidates with criminal records, also urged the parties to state why they field such candidates.

"The court order will create additional pressures on the political parties about not giving tickets to the candidates with criminal backgrounds," said Professor Sanjay Kumar, director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, which specializes in elections and party politics.

"They will be slightly more careful in selecting candidates."

Indian laws do not bar people from contesting election on character grounds unless they have been convicted of an offense attracting a jail sentence of two years or more.

Politicians have apparently been relying on this provision to successfully field candidates in federal and state assembly elections who have criminal records.

Number risen

The Association for Democratic Reforms, which advocates transparency and accountability in politics as well as reducing the undue influence of money, said the number of politicians with criminal records entering the Indian parliament has risen sharply over the past 10 years.

The seriousness of the problem was illustrated by the fact that the number of MPs facing criminal charges had surged over 15 years, the association said. In 2004 about 24 percent of MPs faced criminal charges, by 2009 this had risen to 30 percent, by 2014 to 34 percent and by last year to 43 percent.

Of 539 winners of elections for seats in the Lok Sabha, or House of the People, last year, 233 had declared that they were the subject of criminal cases. Of those 233, 159 faced serious criminal charges such as rape, murder, attempted murder, kidnapping and crimes whose victims were women.

The Supreme Court declared recently: "It shall be mandatory for political parties (at the Central and State election level) to upload on their website detailed information regarding the individuals with pending criminal cases (including the nature of the offenses, and relevant particulars such as whether charges have been framed, the concerned court, the case number, etc.) who have been selected as candidates, along with the reasons for such selection, also as to why other individuals without criminal antecedents could not be selected as candidates."

Subhash C. Kashyap, a constitutional law expert, welcomed the move which, he said, would greatly change Indian politics, All political parties were to blame for the "criminalization of politics", he said.

Jagdeep Chhokar, a citizen-activist for improving democracy and governance in India and one of the founding members of the Association for Democratic Reforms, welcomed the ruling but said more electoral reforms were needed.

"As such, the court should have prevented persons facing serious criminal cases from contesting elections."

The new thing in the latest court ruling is that the political parties will have to give reasons for fielding such candidates but this is no impediment, he said, because any reason could be cited for this.

"The top court ruling doesn't mention who will decide if the reasons cited by the political parties are true or false, satisfactory or not. So no purpose is being served here."

'Dangerous tendency'

Kaushal Kishor Mishra, a political science professor at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh state, said: "The problem with the political parties is that they find leaders with such backgrounds as the guarantee for winning elections. This is a dangerous tendency."

He suggested conducting training for voters so they could differentiate between good and bad candidates.

"The court has taken the initiative to cleanse the system but the main responsibility lies with the voters. They should be careful about not electing criminals."

The new rules could be put to the test this year in the Bihar state, which has one of the largest numbers of lawmakers linked with criminal charges.

Of the state's 142 lawmakers elected to the state assembly in elections in 2015, 98 had been the subject of serious criminal charges, reports said, and 44 others faced charges over minor offenses.

"The way political parties are placing bets on criminal politicians to make rich political gains is very dangerous," said D.M. Diwakar, a political analyst and former director of the AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies in Patna, the Bihar capital.

He, too, questioned the effects of the reforms.

"The court's order is only face-saving. It doesn't talk about barring criminals from contesting elections."

The writer is a freelance journalist.