Court must outlaw all rogue representatives

The hue and cry being raised by the Opposition parties in the country since a Surat court convicted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case and the office of Parliament subsequently disqualified him from House, makes little sense. If one thinks the judgement in a case is not fair, he can always approach the higher courts, and Gandhi has already done it.

Notwithstanding the constitutional claims about its all-inclusive nature, our justice system remains operationally elitist. Gandhi belongs to a class of the influential 'haves' in our country. For persons like him, an access to our higher judiciary is no issue. He can depute a battery of 'big' lawyers to plead his case.

One would, however, just expect our Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of all our legislators, at the Centre as well as in the States, against whom there have been serious criminal allegations. The court must order their speedy trial and outlaw them for ever, if they are found guilty.

Regrettably, during the last couple of years, the apex court gave out a set of directions, including asking the Centre to constitute a monitoring committee to evaluate the reasons for delay of investigation in cases involving MPs/MLAs. It also directed to equip the courts hearing such cases with necessary infrastructure for the conduct of their proceedings. But there has been little movement forward.

The situation has rather deteriorated over the years. According to an estimate, the number of criminal cases pending in subordinate courts against sitting and former lawmakers rose from 4,110 in December 2018 to 4,984 in December 2021. Of them, 1,651 were heinous criminal ones carrying a jail term of more than seven years, life imprisonment, or even death.

There is a near consensus across our non-partisan public spectrum that this grim scenario in our legislatures is absolutely detrimental to the development of our democracy. Founding fathers of our Constitution envisioned a system of governance by individuals or the groups thereof who have an enlightened sense of social-moral conscience.

Due to the presence of rogue elements in our law-making bodies, the kind of development that could have taken place in a normal situation has been evasive in the country.

The behavioural pattern of this group of politicians shows its deep inclination to feudal temperament and obsession with an economic lifestyle incomparably higher than that of the masses. They have little focus on evolving such policies and strategies as would foster the multi-faceted development of the masses - particularly women, oppressed social sections, farmers and other have-nots.

Such politicians do not have the slightest compunction in throwing to the wind the constitutional morality of secularism if their calculus to capture political power demands so. One can discern their mind in their distortion and misuse of our constitutional provisions for affirmative action/positive discrimination.

The spirit behind the founding fathers' idea of affirmative action was to integrate all our historically excluded social groups into the national mainstream by granting them reasonable preferences in the areas of education and employment. But the undesirable politicians frequently misuse this affirmative action idea by promising special benefits to certain groups along the lines of caste, creed, language and region. They also gang up with certain sectarian heads and local goons to reach out to their target groups.

The consensus goes that our independent judiciary is best suited today to take steps aimed at keeping all undesirable elements away from our political system and making democracy meaningful in the country. Little can be expected from the executive in this regard. The reports of the Goswami Committee (1990), the Vohra Committee (1993), the Indrajit Gupta Committee (1998), the Law Commission (1999), the Election Commission of India (2004) and the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2008) on electoral reforms have all just gathered dust.

Recently, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud rightly described the basic structure of our Constitution as a great guide for our nation. He said, "The basic structure of our Constitution, like a North Star, guides and gives a certain direction to the interpreters and implementers of the Constitution when the path ahead is convoluted." Justice Chandrachud must walk the talk and bring to book all rogue elements in our legislatures. Their presence is not but a deterrent to the supremacy of our Constitution, one of the most fundamental features of its basic structure.

In a ruling in January 2017, a seven-judge Constitution Bench headed by then Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur rightly warned that an appeal for votes on the basis of religion, caste, race, community or language would amount to a 'corrupt practice' and call for disqualification of the candidate. Justice Chandrachud could take effective steps to get all those politicians, who continue to indulge in such corrupt practices, disqualified for our legislatures.

(Jagdish N. Singh is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. He is also Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, New York)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of OneIndia and OneIndia does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.