The menace of criminilasation in the political system of India is growing day by day hence to ensure that a voter chooses a candidate after gathering all information about the candidate, the Supreme Court has directed all political parties to update the information of their candidates with criminal backgrounds on the homepage of their websites. It has also asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to create a mobile application with the same details. The app will reveal the criminal antecedents of a candidate to voters at the flick of a button.
A bench of Justices led by Justice R.F. Nariman ordered all political parties to publicise the names of the candidates within 48 hours of their selection. The court supported the fact that this information about the candidates would help make a voter be more informed about the candidate. The ECI was further directed to carry out awareness campaigns to make every voter aware of the availability of information regarding the criminal background of contesting candidates.
During the Bihar assembly polls in Feb, 2020, a similar mandate was posed to publicise the criminal antecedents of contesting candidates and the found nine out of 10 parties as contemnors in the petition guilty. The court had then charged a fine of Rs 1 Lakh to six parties including BJP, INC, Janata Dal, RJD, CPI, and LJP during Bihar assembly polls in February 2020 for not complying with its 2020 ruling.
It also required parties to disclose the reason for finalising such a candidate, so that voters could make “informed” decisions while exercising their franchise. As to the order, parties had to publicise the antecedents of the candidates in a local daily, as well as a national newspaper.
