Opinion No magic broom
On including the chargesheeted in ministries, SC does well to leave it to the politicians.
The Supreme Court has rightly said it can’t issue directives to the prime minister or a chief minister on who ought to be kept out of the council of ministers, and that it is clearly the prerogative of the executive. Any observation to the contrary could well have been read as judicial overreach. However, the five-member Constitution bench that gave the ruling in a PIL, which sought a court directive forbidding legislators chargesheeted in criminal or corruption cases from being appointed as ministers, observed that constitutional morality expected the PM and CMs to keep “tainted” MPs and MLAs out of their teams. While the bench refused to interpret the law in favour of an outright ban on “tainted” ministers, it has suggested that being chargesheeted alone should be reason not to be considered for a ministerial post. The bench’s advice, of course, is not binding on the executive. But now, the latter would surely come under pressure to keep out chargesheeted legislators during ministry formation.
The apex court’s intent is, of course, laudable. Elections have indeed become a playing field for big money and muscle power. The increasing criminalisation of politics is a cause for concern and state and society must work together to end it. That said, there ought to be caution against instituting extreme and excessive measures or setting unreasonable “moral” standards in the name of cleansing public and political life.
This paper has argued that convicted legislators should be allowed to exhaust all avenues of appeal in higher courts before they are disqualified from the House. After all, it is well known that many convictions of the lower courts are overturned later. At its lower levels, the police and legal machinery is arguably more vulnerable to pulls and pressures, and cases against politicians are often motivated. The legal process can be a long-drawn-out affair and an accused or convicted person may have to wait for years before justice is served. It could also work the other way around and canny politicians do exploit the flaws in the legal system to subvert justice. In the coalition age, when governments are frequently forced to survive on thin majorities, there is a strong argument to be made for allowing legislators to avail of the due process before wielding a punishment such as disqualification that could end up destabilising a government. At the same time, steps must be taken to fast track the appeal process. The justice process cannot be short-circuited, for those convicted at the trial court level, much less for those who have merely been chargesheeted. In this matter, there are no quick-fixes — judicial or political.
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