Criminalization of Politics

When anti-social elements enters in the electoral contest it may be called criminalisation of politics. It takes place becuase of the strong nexus that has developed between the criminals and some politicians. The criminal justice system has many inbuilt delays where it takes about 15 years before a criminal case is disposed off by the courts. By going on appeal to the higher courts a convicted person is able to contest an election for the duration of pendency of his appeal as his conviction is stayed by the higher court. The rate of conviction in India has been steadily going down which means many of the accused may go unpunished in a court of law and they cannot be prohibited from contesting elections. The FPTP system in case of multi-cornered contests does not discourage criminals from contesting election because it allows as low as 25-30% of the vote share a candidate can get elected. there is steady decline in value system in the society which does not help in eliminating the criminals in contesting elections.

Consequences of status quo:

There is increased use of money and muscle power during the election by criminals which affect the probity in public life. There is increased corruption in public life which weakens the state institutions such as executive, bureaucracy, legislative , judiciary etc. There is also increase in violence both during and after election. It sets a bad precedence for the youth to follow. It allows the law breaker to get elected as law maker. The parliament looses its moral authority to legislate and council of ministers by including criminals as its members may loose its legitimacy to administer the country. The parliament also fails to enact necessary laws for the effective administration of the country.

Measure taken and recommended:

Judicial: The Supreme Court of India through its progressive interpretation ( this is judicial activism ) has introduced following measures for decriminalization of politics:

a) In 1997 the Supreme Court directed the High Court not to suspend the conviction of a person on appeal if he is convicted and sentenced under Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 by a Trial Court.

b) In Union of India vs Association of Democratic Reform (ADR) , 2002 case ; the Supreme Court directed that all the candidates contesting election to disclose their assets and liabilities details, educational qualifications, criminal conviction and pending criminal cases if any so that the voters can reject the criminals.

c) In Ramesh Dalal vs Union of India , 2005 case ; the Supreme Court of India ruled that even a legislature of state or center shall be disqualified from contesting election if on the day of filing nominations he stands convicted in a court of law.

d) Section 8 (4) of Representation of People Act, 1951 provides that if a member of legislature is convicted and sentenced to >2 years of imprisonment; shall be disqualified from being MP or MLA. However such disqualification shall take effect 90 days after his conviction in a court of law. The Supreme Court of India in Lily Thomas vs Union of India , 2013 case held that under Article 101(3) and 190(3), the disqualification of MP or MLA respectively ; under any law made by legislature is automatic and take immediate effect. Therefore 90 days grace period given to legislature has been held unconstitutional and void.This verdict is in line with Right to Equality.

e) In People's Union for Civil Liberties vs Union of India , 2013 case ; the Supreme Court of India ruled that a voter enjoys a right to negative vote , under Article 19 (1)(a) read with Art 21 . It directed the Election Commission to include the NOTA (Non of The Above ) choice for the voters to exercise the right to negative vote . It has the potential to encourage the political parties to nominate the clean candidates to contest the election.

f) In  Public Interest Litigation Forum vs Union of India , 2014 case; Supreme Court of India directed Trial Court to complete the trial of a case involving a MP or MLA within a year after the framing of criminal charges by the court.

Measures taken recommended by Election Commission:

a) In August 1997 the ECI directed all the Returning officer to reject the nomination papers of any person who stands convicted in a court of law on the day of filing his nomination paper even if his sentence is suspended.

b) ECI has recommended for a 2-Ballot system (currently in practice in France) which means that the winner has to get more than 50% total polled valid votes. In this case currently NOTA votes are not calculated in total valid polled votes but if the suggestion implemented then NOTA votes will be considered as Right to Reject and hence will be counted as Valid Polled votes. See below :

​c) Introduction of Right to Reject in the EVM.

d) Candidates charged of serious crimes should not be allowed to contest.

e) Amendment of Section 125 (A) of R.P Act, i.e on submission of false affidavit a punishment of 6 months is prescribed needs to be changed to 2 years.

These are some of the Criminalisation of Politics and measure taken and recommended. However not a single recommendations of ECI has been implemented by government.

Coal Bloc Scam: A Story

Coal Bloc Scam:

Ye jo Koyla hai...wo hai halka....patthar jaisa bhari nahi hai...lekin jab daloge isko pani mei...to ho jayega bhari..samjhe ki nahi...

to aisa hi hua bete dino mei jab koyla ghotala ka bhanda phod hua...vistar mei janne ke liye niche likkhe gaye abhivyakti ko padhe...

To start with , there are a few regulations/laws that needs to mentioned in beginning:

MMRDA: Mines and Minerals (Regulations & Development ) Act, 1935

CMNA: Coal Mines Nationalization Act, 1973

Coal Bloc: It is an area having coal and mining of coal in this area is done after getting a license from government.

Captive Coal Bloc: It’s a Coal Bloc where the licensee has under the seal made an agreement that the mined coal will be used for specific purpose for which the license has been received like for power, cement or Iron & Steel.

So the story begins:

With this CMNA act all the coal blocs in India were nationalized and only licensed mining were allowed. After the passage of this act, in 1975 Coal India Limited was established as a government enterprise which then later became a PSU.  Till 1991 all the coal mining was done under CIL. Post liberalization hence the advent of private players in the market, mining activities were allowed to private player on condition that it would be for captive purpose on declaration of end use i.e for a specific industry like power, cement and Iron & Steel. With passage of time, in 1993, a screening committee was formed by Ministry of Coal under which secretaries of ministry of Power, steel were involved. This committee was purely bureaucratic and was just to give recommendations on to which private company coal bloc should be allocated. It means that it was Minister of Coal who was to take final call on allocation but at the same time the recommendations had some values.

So finally 3 coal blocs were allocated under P V Narshimha Rao rule in 1993 (name of companies are not important ) then in 1999 under Vajpayee’s government 33 were allocated and during 2004-2014 more than 150 allocation were made.  In 2004 Coal secretary Mr. Nair  wrote a letter to PMO that due to many applications ,coal blocs screening committee is not being able to address on time . Due to this work load, he sought PMO clearance to go for auction- it had intentions like through bidding, government could generate revenue and process will also be transparent so that as many bidders can apply via tender process. Later  in the same year PMO gave clearance from their side and forwarded it to Law Ministry for ensuring the legalities on auctioning process.

Here comes the twist: read patiently – Law Ministry took 2 years to say that auctioning mode will be OK with a few changes in MMRDA provisions. So why they took 2 years , just for giving go ahead. Reason may be - as soon as private players got to know that government will auction for future allocations and they may lose the further requirement of bloc , they started providing the briefcases to all the bureaucrats as well as the minister involved ( sarcastically or even truly we call it as Rajiv Gandhi Briefcase Yojana) . Even before they used to provide the briefcase in order to get clearance from select committee. The proposed auction process was going to be tough for those who were easily getting blocs under screening  committee process. They were unhappy with this news and wanted the enforcement to get delayed, and that’s what happened. In 2010 amendment bill to the act was put in the house and in 2012 it was notified in gazette that is it has been passed – we can go ahead via auctioning process.

So the point is all these 8 years i.e from say by secretary by coal ministry in 2004 to 2012 , was this procedural delay or intentional. The answer lies here which is very logical- from 2004 -2012 nearly 150 and more blocs were allotted i.e by the same screening committee because of absence of proposed bill on auctioning. This was a big conspiracy as it was intentional , one could easily understand that even of law ministry in 2004 took two years to give go ahead for auctioning  i.e in 2006 plus the time taken from tabling the bill and getting it passed from 2010-2012. All these take only 4 years but it took 8 years – logically it should not take this much time in case of national wealth and had to be passed in maximum a year or 2. But it didn’t happen and many blocs were bogusly allotted. Because the briefcase supply was in process.

Twist in the story:

Our Mr. Vinod Rai during audit found that why there is such a huge rise in allocation from 2004. On digging the matter he found that the law  ministry interpreted the law by themselves and allocated blocs to those who even does not have a plant – because captive bloc will be issued as per agreement. But the allocation papers did not have any end use, it just said that the mined coal is intended for the purpose. Mr. Rai submitted a report where he highlighted that had the allocation been made via auctioning  government could have save the loss of 1.8 lac crore. He said that the allocations are made in political favoring , since screening committee is not transparent, all the allocation are also illegal. the This was a titanic statement by Mr. Rai. Because as per some information he was even pressurized to drop/ blur the truth, but he refused to do so. With his report it created a sensation in the country.  He said that the government allocation was imprope for which the government replied that everything was as per provision and ZERO LOSS was said by many like Kapil Sibbal etc. Subsequently a PIL was filed in Supreme Court to look into the issue. Supreme court under their authority constituted a committee which was to be headed by  DIG Ravikant – a man of impeccable image (IPS) . SCI told this committee to scan all the people involved from government side in these allocations starting from 1993-2014. And come with not only the list of the accused but also with the criminal charges against them for looting away the national wealth. But as the investigation progressed , a transfer letter was given to DIG Ravikant . But the hats-off to the PIL person who again went to Supreme court and he said to the court – “SEE WHAT HAS GOVERNMENT DONE”. Then supreme court said government very formly that this investigation would be done by him only and not others.

Finally in 2014 in September , SCI has given the verdict and has cancelled 214 out 218 blocs allotted. Only 4 are operational as 2 out of 4 is under CIL and remaining are with reliance and one other company . These 2 private companies have been told to deposit money which is equal to 2.95X total coal mined till date from the date of mining start. Law ministry during the hearing said that the allocations were made to those who were intended to use it for power, cement , I&S etc here is the point. In CMNA it is given that bloc will be issued to those wo has already running plant. But law ministry interpreted it for their benefit. So SCI said that who has given authority to law ministry to interpret law and bruised them very badly.

So, once again CJI like Mr Lodha has proved that only rule of law prevails in this country and nothing else. The verdict has established the supremacy of victory of rule of law.

After the verdict what has progressed:-

Private companies saying that they have made the investment and will bear a huge loss- My reply to them that they should keep quiet. Because the verdict is very light for them. Supreme court could have put them behind the bars if they wanted , because they are equal partner in this violation. They are telling that they have done what government said but they should have done what law says.