Karnataka High Court judge A.V. Chandrasekhara, hearing the plea of the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, seeking suspension of sentence and bail in the Rs. 66.65-crore disproportionate assets case, on Tuesday observed that corruption amounted to violation of human rights and led to economic imbalance. These words from the judge draw on a recent series of strongly worded judgments by the Supreme Court condemning criminalisation in politics.
The apex court has not minced words when, in each of these judgments, it has sent across the message that corruption by elected representatives arrests national progress.
In the Manoj Narula versus Union of India judgment of August 28, 2014, Justice Dipak Misra wrote that “criminalisation of politics, it can be said with certitude, creates a dent in the marrows of the nation.”
The Constitution Bench verdict, which advises against inducting tainted people as ministers, stresses that “criminalisation of politics is anathema to the sacredness of democracy.”
In the May 6, 2014 judgment relating to the Subramanian Swamy vs. Director, Central Bureau of Investigation & Anr case, another Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India (retired) R.M. Lodha declared that “corruption is an enemy of the nation.”
The apex court further notes that the “office of public power cannot be the workshop of personal gain. Probity in public life is of great importance.”
The verdict, which held that the CBI did not require prior sanction to probe senior bureaucrats in corruption cases, clarified that status or position was no deterrent to a fair probe under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
“Corrupt public servants, whether high or low, are birds of the same feather,” the Supreme Court held, while explaining that “it is clear as noon day that corruption has the potentiality to destroy many a progressive aspect and it has acted as the formidable enemy of the nation.”
The judgment in the Lily Thomas versus Union of India case on July 10, 2013 is another testimony from the Supreme Court that it does not want to give corrupt politicians any leeway. It is in this verdict that the court ruled that any MP or MLA convicted of a crime with more than two years’ sentence would face disqualification. A Bench led by Justice (retired) A.K. Patnaik also declared unconstitutional Section 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act, allowing elected members three months’ time to appeal their conviction.
The same year saw the Supreme Court Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan (retired) and Dipak Misra, in Niranjan Hemchandra Sashittal and another versus State of Maharashtra, lament how “the nation stood as a silent witness to corruption at high places.”
“It can be stated without any fear of contradiction that corruption is not to be judged by degree for, corruption mothers disorder, destroys societal will to progress, accelerates undeserved ambitions, kills the conscience, jettisons the glory of the institutions, paralyses the economic health of a country, corrodes the sense of civility and mars the marrows of governance,” Justice Misra wrote in the judgment.
The Bench said the “immoral acquisition of wealth destroys the energy of people believing in honesty.”
