A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court to direct the government to make electoral offences cognisable with a punishment of minimum two years in jail. The offences listed are bribery, undue influence, impersonation, false statement, illegal payments and non-filing of accounts.
Supreme Court advocate Ashwini Upadhyay said in his petition that successive governments did not act on the Election Commission’s recommendations since 1992 for harsher punishment. The result was the erosion of public trust in the electoral system. Parties and candidates used bribery not only in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections but also in byelections, it said.
Bribery, undue influence and impersonation are non-cognisable, with punishment of one year in jail, or fine, or both.
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The petition said publishing false statements to affect the outcome of an election was punished with a fine. Incurring expenditure for promoting the prospects of a candidate was also an offence, but punishment was a mere ₹500 in fine. Similarly, failure to keep election accounts was punished with a fine of ₹500. These punishments were drafted in 1920.
“In 1992, the Election Commission proposed that punishments for these offences be enhanced to two years [in jail], and these offences be made cognizable. Since 1992, it has reiterated the proposals many times, but the successive governments did nothing to implement them,” Mr. Upadhyay said.
The bribing of voters with money and essential commodities and buying out representatives had plagued the electoral system, it said. In 2012, the Election Commission recommended that the Home Ministry amend the law to make bribery in elections (both cash and kind) a cognizable offence, with two years in jail, enabling the police to arrest violators without warrant. “The government has done nothing so far,” the petition said.
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