NEW DELHI, India—The Supreme Court of India has made it mandatory for all the political parties to disclose the details of pending criminal cases against candidates contesting polls. All the political parties have been directed to mention reasons for selecting candidates with pending criminal cases on their website.
The Supreme Court’s direction has come on a contempt plea which raised the issue of criminalization of politics claiming that directions given by the apex court in its September 2018 verdict relating to disclosure of criminal antecedents by candidates are not being followed.
A bench headed by Justice Rohinton F. Nariman also directed that political parties will publish these details on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and in one local vernacular and one national newspaper.
It is learnt that the political parties will have to intimate the Election Commission within 72 hours of selecting candidates with pending criminal cases against them.
If any political party doesn’t follow the norm, the EC would have to bring it in the notice of Supreme Court.
“It appears that there has been an alarming increase in criminalization of politics in the last four general elections,” said the bench while pronouncing order.
