A PIL has been moved in Delhi High Court seeking a slew of electoral reforms, including setting aside of the the six-year cap on period of disqualification from contesting polls under the election law for being convicted of offences carrying a punishment of imprisonment of two years or more.
A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice V K Shali, before whom the matter was listed today, observed that a similar plea was pending before the Madras High Court.
The bench asked the petitioner, a lawyer, to place before it a copy of the petition filed there and listed the matter for hearing on August 24.
The petitioner, Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, has claimed that the restriction of six years on the period of disqualification of a legislator is ultra vires the Constitution and sought that the sections of Representation of the People Act (RPA) which prescribe this punishment be declared null and void.
The plea suggests implementation of the electoral reforms proposed by the Election Commission (ECI) and Law Commission (LCI) which are also in favour of disqualifying a lawmaker even prior to his conviction, at the stage when charges are framed against him for offences which carry a punishment of imprisonment for five or more years.
Apart from that Upadhyay has sought directions to the government to set minimum educational qualifications and maximum age limit for contesting candidates.
He has also suggested that political parties should have a responsibility to maintain proper accounts of their income and expenditure and ought to get them annually audited by agencies specified by ECI.
He has further sought that the law should be amended to provide that a person cannot contest from more than one constituency at a time and if contesting from two seats was to be allowed, then there should be a provision that makes it mandatory for a person winning from both seats to foot the bill for holding a bye-election in one of them.
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Upadhyay, in his plea, has also sought enhancement of punishment from fine or one year imprisonment to two years jail term for various electoral offences like undue influence and bribery at polls and publishing a false statement in connection with an election.
He has made a strong pitch for lifetime disqualification for failure to lodge the account of election expenses as per the requirement of the law which, under the existing provisions, entail disqualification of three years.
He has also said in his petition that "candidates violating provisions of the Act should be disqualified and political parties putting up such a candidate should be derecognised and deregistered".
The other issues raised by him include, proliferation of non-serious parties, process of recognition and de-recognition of political parties, as well as disclosure of assets and liabilities of parties.
