Relook basic qualifications for Panchayat polls
Though well-intentioned, the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the constitutional validity of a Haryana law that adds five preconditions for individuals wanting to contest panchayat polls in the State, deserves closer scrutiny. The preconditions were incorporated to ensure that those who seek public office are deserving of it but have sparked a debate on whether they violate the spirit of universal suffrage, which includes not just the right to vote but, by extension, also the right to stand for election. Now, the Constitution already prescribes certain qualifications and disqualifications for elected representatives, so, the question here is: Are the new restrictions, introduced through an amendment of Section 175 of the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act, 1994 earlier this year, also in keeping with the spirit of the ConstitutionIJ For now, the Supreme Court has ruled in the affirmative but there are some definite gray areas, and it is possible that that the matter may later be taken up by a larger Constitutional bench.
The most controversial of the qualifications is the one that relates to minimum education. The Haryana Government and now also the Supreme Court's argument is that these are necessary to improve governance at the level of panchayati raj institutions. The logic driving this argument is unassailable. However, there are also concerns about the policy being exclusionary in nature — for example, as per literacy figures of the 2011 Census, this rule effectively disqualifies almost half of Haryana's rural men from contesting a panchayat election. Another hotly debated prerequisite is that of a functional toilet in the aspiring panch's home. Now, there is no arguing against the larger open defecation fight or even that those who seek to lead their communities must do by setting a good example. But what about those who are too poor to have a toilet at homeIJ They are being pointed to the Haryana Government's scheme that gives `12,000 for toilet construction. But note that winning the battle against open defecation requires more than just setting up toilets.
There are two more requirements, and these deal with personal debt — those who owe money to either a primary agricultural cooperative society or district central cooperative bank or district primary agricultural rural development bank or have arrears of electricity bills are prohibited from contesting a panchayat election. The assumption here is that if a person can't pay his bills, he's not going to run an expensive election campaign. This is absurdly simplistic. Also, the Supreme Court places such persons in the same bracket as those who have been adjudged as “undischarged insolvents”, which then disqualifies them from contesting an election under the Constitution of India. This argument is hugely problematic because there are codifed laws dealing with “undischarged insolvents” and just about every other person who has some debt cannot be described as one. This brings us to the last precondition: Those who are facing serious criminal charges for offences punishable with imprisonment for not less than 10 years cannot contest a panchayat election. Again, while the effort to keep public offices free of criminals is welcome, it is problematic that it comes at the cost of a universal principle of jurisprudence — that a man is innocent until proven guilty.