Top civil society bodies are challenging the government's
'counter-affidavit' in the Paid News case which seeks to gut the
Election Commission's powers
In a major twist to the Ashok Chavan vs. Madhav Kinhalkar legal battle
(more notorious as the "Paid News" scandal), leading civil society
organisations and eminent individuals have approached the Supreme
Court to implead themselves into the case.
Their intervention application, moved by advocate Prashant Bhushan,
minces no words on their reasons for doing so. They are disturbed by
"the stranglehold of money power on our electoral politics." And by a
recent move of the Union Law Ministry which could destroy the Election
Commission of India's power to disqualify candidates filing incorrect
or false accounts.
The applicants for intervention hope to defeat "the nefarious design"
of the Union government which seeks to "undo all the good work done by
the Election Commission of India." And which further seeks, to
"unsettle the law already settled" by the Supreme Court of India. They
wish to ensure that the ECI "retains the plenitude of its power and
authority to safeguard the purity and integrity of the electoral
process." Which includes holding candidates to account on poll
expenses.
This action follows the Union Law Ministry filing a counter-affidavit
on behalf of the Government in the Ashok Chavan case. That affidavit,
first reported by The Hindu on March 20, asserts that "the power of
the Election Commission to disqualify a person arises only in the
event of failure to lodge an account of expenses and not for any other
reason, including the correctness or otherwise of such accounts."
Simply put: the government claims the ECI has no right to disqualify a
candidate even if his accounts are found to be improper or fraudulent.
If accepted, this would virtually gut the powers of that
Constitutional body. (However, the Court is yet to give any ruling on
the matter.)
Those seeking to intervene include Common Cause, a public interest
body. Its legal activism on electoral matters had a role in the
Supreme Court's ordering that political parties had to file regular
returns of income or invite possible penal action. Also in the line-up
is the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a group at the
forefront of many battles for electoral and political reforms. Vital
among those, a public interest litigation (PIL) of ADR in 1999, which
later saw the Supreme Court order candidates to disclose their
criminal, financial and educational background prior to the polls.
That is, by filing an affidavit with the ECI. Common Cause and ADR are
joined by five other civil society bodies in this application.
The line-up of distinguished individuals includes veteran journalist
and editor B.G. Verghese, former Chief Election Commissioners of India
(CEC) N. Gopalaswami and J.M. Lyngdoh, and former adviser to the ECI,
K.J. Rao.
The immediate beneficiary of the UPA government's attack on the ECI's
powers is the disgraced ex-chief Minister of Maharashtra, Ashok
Chavan. As former Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami has
pointed out: "The government has joined Mr. Chavan in challenging the
Election Commission's power to disqualify a candidate under Section
10A of the Act for his failure to submit a correct and true rendering
of his election expenditure" (The Hindu, April 17, 2013). The former
CEC clearly sums up the impulse for civil society action: "The case
before the Supreme Court is no longer one of Dr. Kinhalkar and others
vs Ashok Chavan. It concerns every individual and institution that is
uneasy about and opposed to the sway of money power in elections." —
See "Doublespeak on electoral reforms, April 17, 2013, The Hindu,
thne.ws/gopalaswami
Mr. Chavan not only lost his post in the fallout of the Adarsh scam,
but also earned notoriety in the "Paid News scandal," a story broken
by The Hindu (See: "Is the 'Era of Ashok' a new era for 'news'",
thne.ws/era-of-ashok, November 29, 2009).
Destructive
The applicants for intervention in the case note there is "a growing
concern that the pandemic of Paid News is eating into the vitals of
our democratic polity by compromising the purity of the elections and
destroying the credibility of the print/electronic media." They cite
the case of Umlesh Yadav, MLA from Uttar Pradesh, who was disqualified
by the ECI for three years. Ms Yadav had failed "to account for an
expenditure of Rs. 21,250 on an advertisement that had appeared in the
disguise of a news item in the Dainik Jagran," of April 17, 2007.
They note that "Umlesh Yadav pales into insignificance in comparison
to the media blitzkrieg" launched in support of Ashok Chavan's 2009
Assembly election campaign. And that the Government of India which had
ostensibly taken a strong public position on Paid News and praised the
ECI's efforts to curb it, "has filed a counter affidavit which reveals
its true colours."
The Election Commission is also likely to file an affidavit opposing
the government's pro-Chavan counter-affidavit.
thehindu
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