Ought to convicted individuals contest elections?

Context: Authorized Provisions underneath the Illustration of the Individuals Act, 1951 (RP Act, 1951)

• Part 8(3): Disqualifies an individual convicted of a legal offense with imprisonment of not less than two years. The disqualification extends for six years post-release.
• Part 8(1): Contains disqualification for heinous crimes like rape, untouchability (PCR Act), illegal affiliation (UAPA), and corruption (Prevention of Corruption Act), regardless of sentence length.
• Part 8(4): Beforehand allowed sitting legislators to proceed post-conviction in the event that they appealed. Struck down within the Lily Thomas case (2013).
• Part 11: Election Fee (EC) can scale back or take away disqualification. Utilized in 2019 to shorten Prem Singh Tamang’s disqualification interval.

Relevance : GS 2(Elections)

Key Supreme Court docket Judgments Supporting Decriminalization of Politics

• ADR Case (2002): Mandated candidates to reveal legal information.
• CEC vs. Jan Chaukidar (2013): Held that undertrial prisoners can not contest elections, however Parliament later overturned this by means of an modification.
• Lily Thomas Case (2013): Invalidated Part 8(4), making certain rapid disqualification of convicted legislators.

Present Petition for a Lifetime Ban

• Petition seeks a everlasting ban on convicted individuals from contesting elections.
• Argument: If convicted people are barred from authorities jobs, they need to not grow to be lawmakers.
• Authorities’s stance (2020): MPs and MLAs are usually not topic to service circumstances like authorities workers, and the prevailing six-year disqualification is sufficient.

Criminalization of Politics: The Information

• ADR Report (2024):
  • 46% (251 out of 543) elected MPs have legal circumstances.
  • 31% (171 MPs) face critical fees like rape, homicide, and kidnapping.
  • Candidates with a legal background had a 15.4% successful probability, whereas clean-background candidates had solely 4.4%.

Suggestions and Challenges

• Regulation Fee (1999, 2014) and EC:
  • Advisable disqualification of candidates going through fees for crimes punishable with greater than 5 years.
  • Nonetheless, issues stay about misuse of politically motivated circumstances.
• Approach Ahead:
  • Doable lifetime disqualification for heinous crimes and corruption-related offenses.
  • Evaluate of EC’s energy to scale back disqualification intervals.
  • Want for political consensus on stricter norms to curb criminalization.