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Candidates to swear they are not criminals

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

Candidates for the Uttar Pradesh assembly election and other byelections will now have to compulsorily swear an affidavit that they have not been convicted of any specified offence.

This follows the verdict of the Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court on a petition challenging the election of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

While rejecting the writ petition, Justice U K Dhaon ruled on Thursday that all nominations would have to be necessarily accompanied with such an affidavit.

In fact, the absence of such an affidavit can become the basis for the rejection of a nomination.

So far, there was no such legal binding on the candidates, since the filing of an affidavit was not part of the provisions of the Representation of People's Act, but a directive of the Election Commission of India.

The high court order now provides the EC directive the legal sanctity required to make errant candidates stick to the rules.

Additional Solicitor General R N Trivedi, who specially flew down to Lucknow to argue the case on behalf of the prime minister told rediff.com: "This is a landmark judgment and would strengthen the Election Commission in its mission to eradicate the entry of criminals into politics."

The petitioner H K Lal, a former vice chancellor of a university in Bihar, had filed his nomination against Vajpayee from Lucknow in 1999, but it was rejected on the ground that he had not cared to file the desired affidavit.

Lal in his petition had contended that the Election Commission had no authority to constitute laws, and as a result its directive didn't bind him.

While basing his arguments on the provisions of section 123 of Representation of People's Act, which lays down the grounds of disqualification of candidates in an election, Lal, who argued the case on his own, also cited the Indira Gandhi case of 1975.

The bench, however, held that the Indira Gandhi case had no relevance to the present petition.

The verdict has created much commotion in political circles in Uttar Pradesh where over 200 persons have already filed their nomination papers for the assembly election, scheduled next month.

"Since the verdict has come today, it must not be taken with retrospect, otherwise so many candidates who might have not realised the binding of such an affidavit may find their nominations rejected on this ground," Ram Saran Das, president of the Uttar Pradesh unit of Samajwadi Party, said.

Since the list of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party nominees was released in New Delhi on Thursday evening, state BJP leaders seemed to readily agree with the judgment.

"We will make it a point to direct all our nominees to ensure filing of the necessary affidavit along with their respective nomination papers," state BJP election coordinator Shyam Nandan Singh said.

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