NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to respond to a proposition that the law allowing MPs and MLAs to continue despite being sentenced to more than two years' jail term upon conviction in a criminal case was discriminatory and encouraged criminalization of politics.
Appearing as amicus curiae in a PIL by advocate Lily Thomas, senior advocate Fali S Nariman said an anomalous situation existed under the Representation of People Act, where one provision debarred a person from contesting election for six years on conviction in a criminal case with two years imprisonment while the other allowed MPs and MLAs to continue if they filed an appeal within three months of the judgment of conviction. A bench of Justices A K Patnaik and H L Gokhale said Nariman had raised an important legal point and asked additional solicitor general Siddharth Luthra to seek the Union government's response on the issue. tnn
Nairman cited several judgments of the apex court on this point and said that in one case, it had held that the presumption of innocence of a person ended after a trial court convicted him of an offence. If on this basis, Parliament thought it fit to debar a person from contesting election for six years, why should it create a special class in MPs and MLAs whose conviction would not entail any adverse effect if they merely filed an appeal against that conviction, he asked.
He said the exception carved out under Section 8(4) of the RP Act encouraged criminalization of politics as MPs and MLAs so convicted do not have to seek orders from the appellate court for stay of the sentence and in exceptional cases, a stay of the conviction itself.
"This violates the provision of Article 14 (right to equality/non-discrimination) of the Constitution as it made an exception only for a convicted MP or MLA as opposed to the conviction of the same person if he were not an MP or MLA and placing the members on a higher pedestal - which encourages rather than thwarts the criminalization of politics," Nariman argued.
He said the Supreme Court in Prabhakaran case in 2005 had ventured into surmises to lend force to the exception carved out only for MPs and MLAs under Section 8(4) of the RP Act.
Whether the conviction of a sitting MP or MLA, who faced disqualification because of award of sentence of more than two years, should be stayed or not should be left to the discretion of the appellate court as in the case of a person who is not a member of Parliament or assembly, he said.
Why allow MPs and MLAs to continue even after conviction: PIL
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Why allow MPs and MLAs to continue even after conviction: PIL
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Why allow MPs and MLAs to continue even after conviction: PIL
