The Supreme Court will pronounce its judgment on Tuesday on a batch of petitions seeking disqualification of politicians facing criminal trial from contesting elections.
A five-judge Constitution bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, had on August 28 reserved its verdict on the petitions and is scheduled to pronounce the verdict tomorrow.
At present, under the Representation of Peoples (RP) Act convicted lawmakers are barred from contesting elections, not the accused ones.
The Centre has contended that the judiciary should not venture into the legislative arena by creating a pre-condition which would adversely affect the right of the candidates to participate in polls as there was already the RP Act which deals with the issue of disqualification.
The apex court had observed earlier that persons facing criminal charges would be free to contest, but they cannot do so on a party ticket under its election symbol.
Attorney General K K Venugopal, on behalf of the Centre had said that Parliament has made a distinction between an accused and a convict and there has been a provision for disqualification in the Representation of Peoples Act upon conviction of a lawmaker.
The Election Commission of India had taken a view which was apparently opposite to the Centre and said the recommendations for decriminalising politics were made by the poll panel and the Law Commission way back in 1997 and 1998, but no action was taken on them.
Prasanta Patnaik