Electoral Reforms: SC To Hear Plea By NGO Seeking Contempt Action For Non-Compliance Of Orders

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea of a non-governmental organisation (NGO) seeking contempt action against a ministry official for non-compliance of a top court order.

In its plea it alleged that a secretary of legislative department in the Law and Justice Ministry did not comply with the court directive issued in 2018 on electoral reforms.

A bench headed by Justice S Abdul Nazeer, which had issued notice to the secretary on 11 November, will now take up the matter for hearing on 2 January.

NGO Lok Prahari, in its contempt plea, contended that several directions were issued by the top court on 16 February 2018, but they have remained non-complied with for no valid or compelling reasons.

It was pointed out that the Centre has not established a permanent mechanism to conduct inquiry in the cases of MPs/MLAs/MLCs whose assets increased by more than 100 per cent by the next election.

In a landmark judgement, the top court had ruled that politicians, their spouses and dependents would now have to declare their sources of income, along with their assets, for contesting elections.

The apex court had also passed a slew of measures to reform the electoral process, observing that the “purity” of electoral process was fundamental to the “survival of a healthy democracy”.

It had asked the Centre to put in place a mechanism to periodically collect data of the elected representatives, their spouses and dependents to examine whether there was any “disproportionate increase” in their assets and recommend appropriate action in such cases.