Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 17: A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to take steps to ensure that every political party publishes the details regarding criminal cases of each candidate along with reason for such selection on the Home Page of its official website in the spirit of the apex court judgment.
The PIL, filed by Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, also seeks directions to the ECI to de-register the political party which violates the directions of the apex court.
The plea stated that on January 13,2022, Samajwadi Party fielded notorious gangster Nahid Hasan from Kairana but neither published his criminal records in electronic, print and social media nor the reason of his selection within 48 hours as per the direction of the court.
It also sought direction to the ECI to ensure that every political party explains why it preferred a candidate with criminal cases and did not select a person without criminal antecedents within 48 hours.
Notably, as per the Supreme Court’s judgments in 2018 and 2020, political parties were ordered to publish the entire criminal history of their candidates for Assembly and Lok Sabha elections along with the reasons that goaded them to field suspected criminals over decent people.
The information should be published in a local as well as a national newspaper as well as the parties’ social media handles. It should mandatorily be published either within 48 hours of the selection of candidates or less than two weeks before the first date for filing of nominations, whichever is earlier.
