Campaign Finance Reforms in India: Issues and Challenges

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Campaign Finance Reforms in India: Issues and Challenges This matter was considered by a committee of Parliament. They said our jurisprudence is that a person is presumed to be innocent unless convicted. If you go by that logic and jurisprudence, then why is it that lakhs of people are put in jail and are not even being given bail? They are not convicted so they are still innocent. Why do you put people behind bars under preventive detention law? They are not yet convicted, they are all innocent as per jurisprudence. They cannot live with their families, they cannot meet their children, they cannot earn for them; their family members may be starving. If you can deprive them of all those fundamental rights, what is so great about the right to contest an election? We have also been demanding a law, a separate law, on regulating the functioning of political parties: How they should work, how there should be internal democracy and periodic elections and publication of accounts and other things so that there is transparency. All this we have been demanding but unfortunately we are not in a position to do anything on our own. I will give you another example. Somebody was saying that the candidates are being asked by the Election Commission to disclose their assets, liabilities, etc. That was actually not our order. That was an order given by the Supreme Court. Some concerned citizens went to the Supreme Court and said that, "at least you ask them to disclose assets". The Supreme Court took the view that every voter has a 'fundamental right' of expression, the vote is an expression of that right. For making that right effective, he should be able to make an informed choice, and for that informed choice he should be provided at least the basic information about the candidates. Voters should know what type of criminal antecedents the candidate has, how many assets, liabilities, what educational qualifications he has, etc. The Supreme Court gave a direction to the Election Commission to get this information and disseminate to the people at large. We thought that if the law is amended in manner that this information comes in the nomination paper, it would be better. We wrote to the Government, asking www.orfonline.org 23
ORF Seminar Series them to provide these things in the nomination paper. The Government convened an all-party meeting and there was a unanimous view that nothing should be made known to the people except convictions. Parliament amended Section 33(V) of the Representation of the People Act 1951 overruling the earlier judicial order on criminal antecedent disclosure. So, candidates will file an affidavit giving only the information with regard to convictions and more than one-year prison-term. They said this would be the case, notwithstanding anything contained in any judgment of the Supreme Court, High Court, etc. The second round then followed before the Supreme Court. The Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and others went to the Supreme Court, which struck down the particular provision. This is how now the Commission's order, or whatever you may call it, instructs that candidates must file an affidavit giving relevant information. You will be surprised, Sir, that when this matter was being discussed in Parliament, there was a lot of opposition from some parties, some very important parties, who asked why should a candidate state how educated he is. We pointed out to them that if you see the Constituent Assembly debates on this issue, Dr. Rajendra Prasad (as the Chairman) closed the arguments by saying that at that juncture 84 per cent of the people were illiterate, very few candidates were literate and most of them might not be having any formal degree. “If you provide any educational qualification as a condition we may be out, but the time will come when the Parliament can do that”, he had said. In 2001, the move was being opposed. 24 www.orfonline.org
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