NEW DELHI : Persons charged with heinous crimes will not be able to contest polls, if a proposal of Law Minister Kapil Sibal goes through.
The proposal goes beyond the Supreme Court’s judgement of July barring jailed people from contesting polls and providing for immediate disqualification of a convicted lawmaker.
Sibal proposes to bring a bill to bar persons charged with heinous crimes with an aim of keeping criminals away from politics.
He told in an interview that he has already sought the opinion of the Law Commission on this issue.
“I have written to the Law Commission. I have sought their opinion. But personally, I have even done a draft of the bill,” he said.
Sibal said he “personally” believes that people who are charged with very serious offences like murder, kidnapping, rape, which carry minimum sentence of seven years, should not be allowed to fight elections.
“Even if they are not convicted, even if they are charged, they should not be allowed to fight elections,” he said, adding, “hopefully (we can) take it forward.”
Asked whether he has discussed this issue with his Congress party, Sibal replied, “No, this is my view… I will certainly, before the next session, see that I consult with my colleagues and try and bring it to the Cabinet. If I can do it, nothing like it.”
He was asked whether if it was on the lines of the Supreme Court judgement of July 10 that barred people in jail from contesting elections and provided for immediate disqualification of convicted lawmakers.
“I am going 10 steps further than the kind of debate that has been going on,” Sibal replied.
Interestingly, Parliament, during the Monsoon session, negated the Supreme Court order that barred jailed people from contesting elections.
Government had moved to negate the SC ruling on disqualification of convicted lawmakers also but an Ordinance in this regard was withdrawn along with a bill after Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi attacked the proposal.
He dubbed the Ordinance, which was cleared by the Cabinet, as “complete nonsense” and said it should be “torn up and thrown out”.
In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court had recently struck down a provision in the electoral law that protects a convicted lawmaker from disqualification on the ground of pendency of appeal in higher courts.
The apex court also made it clear that MPs, MLAs and MLCs would stand disqualified on the date of conviction.
The court said Parliament has exceeded its powers by enacting the provision (Section 8(4) of the Representation of Peoples Act) that gives a convicted lawmaker the power to remain in office on the ground that appeals have been filed and pending.
Following the judgement, government introduced a bill in Parliament in the Monsoon session to negate the order.
But the BJP, which was initially with the government, suggested bringing a Constitutional amendment.
As the bill could not be passed, government approved an ordinance on the lines of the bill.
While Rahul Gandhi publicly trashed the ordinance, President Pranab Mukherjee too is learnt to have questioned the government on the issue.
The ordinance and the bill were finally withdrawn by the government on October 2.
Since the SC verdict is the law of the land now, jailed RJD chief Lalu Prasad and JD(U)leader Jagdish Sharma were disqualified as Lok Sabha members following their conviction in the fodder scam.
66-year-old Rasheed Masood, a Congress member of the Rajya Sabha, held guilty in a case of corruption and other offences in September too was disqualified from the Upper House.
In a back-to-back judgement on the same day, the apex court had ruled that only an “elector” can contest the polls and he or she ceases the right to cast vote due to confinement in prison or being in custody of police.
The court had, however, made it clear that disqualification would not be applicable to persons subjected to preventive detention under any law.
But Parliament negated this order by passing the Representation of the People (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2013. (AGENCIES)
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