Election manifestoes of political parties will now come under the ambit of the Model Code of Conduct prepared by the Election Commission. The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Commission to finalise guidelines to rein political parties from announcing freebies that “undoubtedly” influenced the voters’ mind and vitiated the level playing field during elections.
The court issued the directive due to the limitation it faced under the Representation of Peoples Act to declare such acts to be electoral malpractices. It admitted that schemes under which freebies were distributed fell within the realm of Directive Principles of State Policy and thus would fall under “public purpose” to justify allocation of State funds. However, it felt that such schemes were misused to lure the voters.
The Bench of Justices P Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi said, “Promises in the election manifesto do not constitute as a corrupt practice under the prevailing law.”
Then it added, “The reality cannot be ruled out that distribution of freebies of any kind, undoubtedly, influences all people.”
The petition by one S Subramanium Balaji, a resident of Tamil Nadu had raised questions over the manner in which the DMK and AIADMK were unrivalled in announcing television sets, grinders, fans, gold pendants, laptops, free rice, cattle, and even cash incentives, all at the cost of taxpayers’ money.
The petitioner contended that distributing freebies by parties amounted to bribery and this amounted to a corrupt practice under Section 123 of the RP Act. With such open display of government largesse going unpunished under the prevailing law, the judges faced a hurdle.
The Election Commission too had pointed out in the court that distribution of freebies at government cost disturbed the level playing field and vitiated the electoral process.
Since no legislation existed that governed the contents of election manifesto, the court ordered the Commission to take up the task on an urgent basis to add in the Model Code of Conduct a separate head concerning guidelines for election manifesto released by a political party. Although aware that the Model Code would come into operation since the announcement of polls, the bench overrode this limitation by declaring, “Nevertheless an exception can be made in this regard as the purpose of election manifesto is directly associated with the election process.”
Simultaneously, the court urged the Centre to consider the need for a separate legislation for the purpose of governing the political parties in the country as part of the democratic system.