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All-party meet rejects EC norm on assets, antecedents

By Anita Joshua

The Deputy Prime Minister, L. K. Advani, with the Union Minister for Law and Justice, Jana Krishnamurthi, and the Minister of State for Law and Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad, at a meeting on electoral reforms and judicial commission in New Delhi on Monday. #151; Photo: V.V. Krishnan

NEW DELHI JULY 8. In a show of "rare unanimity,'' leaders of 21 political parties today rejected the Election Commission's directives to candidates seeking details of their assets and criminal antecedents, if any, along with the nomination forms, and said that the Government should, instead, come out with comprehensive legislation to address the issue of criminalisation of politics.

Successful in securing a consensus on the Commission's directive — that was issued in compliance with a Supreme Court order — during this morning's all-party meeting, the Government later announced that it would come out with a draft bill by this week-end to address the concerns expressed in the judgment so that it could be tabled and passed in the monsoon session of Parliament.

EC sticks to stand

Meanwhile, the Election Commission maintained that its June 28 guidelines, requiring candidates to furnish information about their criminal background, assets and liabilities, and educational qualifications, would be implemented as per the Supreme Court order of May 2.

The Government's position is that these guidelines would be effective till the area not covered by a law is covered by new legislation, as pointed out in the Supreme Court judgment.

Briefing mediapersons after the meeting he chaired, the Union Law Minister, Jana Krishnamurthi, said that the bill would be prepared keeping in mind the views expressed by the party leaders, and circulated among all the parties before being tabled in Parliament.

The sense of urgency that the parties attach to this proposed legislation was articulated by Mr. Krishnamurthi when he said "we are racing against time,'' to a question on whether the legislation would be in place before the election to the Rajya Sabha seat from Maharashtra later this month.

Giving details about what transpired at the meeting, Mr. Krishnamurthi said that while the leaders had acknowledged the need for dealing with the criminalisation of politics, it was unanimously felt that the Government should bring in a law. However, this did not signal any type of confrontation with the Supreme Court. ``But, when it comes to enactment of laws, Parliament is supreme as has been acknowledged by the apex court itself in an earlier judgment.''

With political parties closing ranks on this issue, the Government foresees no problem in seeing the proposed legislation through Parliament. While all the parties rejected the directive's clause on "educational qualifications,'' the general opinion was also in favour of making it mandatory for the candidates to disclose their assets and liabilities after election and not at the time of filing nominations.

Apprehensive of involvement in "criminal cases'' being used against a candidate at the threshold itself, the spokesman of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Arun Jaitley — who was among the three party members who attended the meeting — said that there was a need to exclude offences of a purely political nature such as participating in demonstrations/violating prohibitory orders from its ambit.

Similar views came from the Congress, whose representative at the meeting, Pranab Mukherjee, is also said to have made a plea for simplifying the electoral process and stated that issues such as criminalisation of politics ought to be addressed through legislation.

The CPI (M) general secretary, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, articulated the politburo's view that the directive would not weed out criminals from the electoral process but pose serious obstacles to it. Of the view that the judgment had "inadvertently introduced extraneous issues in the electoral process,'' he said Parliament should rectify the matter through appropriate legislation.

Echoing this view, the CPI (M-L) representative at the meeting, Swadesh Bhattacharya, said that the directive to furnish educational qualifications went against universal adult franchise.

Another apprehension expressed by him pertained to the scope of arbitrary action on the part of the Returning Officer who, it was felt — both within and outside the Government — could be used as a "political weapon.''

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