The Haryana Government’s Swachchh Bharat mission suffered a jolt on Thursday as the Supreme Court stayed a State law which mandated candidates contesting Gram Panchayat elections to have a pucca toilet in their homes, besides being matriculation pass with no criminal record.
Three candidates who stood disqualified to contest the elections, the last date for filing nominations for which was September 19, approached the apex court challenging the qualification criteria for Sarpanch, Panch, and members of Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishads as laid down by the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act 2015.
Referring to the education criteria fixed under the Act, advocate Kirti Singh representing the petitioners Raj Bala, Kamlesh and Preet Singh showed data to suggest that only 56.8 per cent adult population in the State had cleared Matriculation. In case of rural and Dalit women, the Act required them to be Class 8 pass. Applying this rule will eliminate close to 80 per cent women in the State, she explained.
The Bench of Justices J Chelameswar and AM Sapre issued notice on the petition and ordered immediate stay of the law along with the notification dated September 8 issued by the State Election Commission announcing elections to the Panchayati Raj institutions.
As part of the Swachh Bharat mission, the State Government made it compulsory for all contesting candidates to have a “functional toilet” at their residence. Besides, the candidate was required to have cleared all arrears of electricity bills, rural credit deposits and a clean record.
Dealing with the criteria of functional toilets, the petition filed by advocate Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar said, “The only reason behind the absence of a functional toilet at a person’s residence is abject poverty…It is the State’s responsibility to provide its citizens with basic amenities and the impugned clause penalises already downtrodden sections of the rural population.” A survey conducted by the National Sample Survey in Haryana found more than 25 per cent households without a functional toilet.