Promise of financial help by political party in manifesto not corrupt practice by candidate: SC

SC on electoral freebies

The Supreme Court, in an order passed on May 27, held that commitments by political parties in their election manifesto, which lead to financial help to the public at large, will not amount to corrupt practice by a candidate of that party.

The order, passed by a bench of justices Surya Kant and K V Viswanathan, found this contention to be 'too far fetched' as they rejected a plea challenging the election of a Congress candidate in Karanataka's Chamrajpet in 2023 assembly elections.

"The contention that the commitments by a political party in its manifesto, which eventually lead to direct or indirect financial help to the public at large, will also amount to corrupt practice by a candidate of that party, is too far-fetched and cannot be accepted," the bench held.

Case file:

A person named Shashanka Sreedhara, a voter in Chamrajper, moved the Election Tribunal/Karnataka High Court challenging the election of Zaheer Ahmed, a five-time Congress MLA from the constituency.

According to Sreedhara, the promised made in Ahmed's manifesto ie. Congress party's five guarantees amounted to him indulging in corrupt practice. The guarantees include Rs 2,000 monthly assistance to women heads of all families (Gruhalakshmi), 200 units of power to all households (Gruhajyoti), Rs 3,000 every month for graduate youth and Rs 1,500 for diploma holders (Yuvanidhi), 10 kg rice per person per month (Annabhagya) and free travel for women in the state public transport buses (Shakti). He contended that since these guarantees benefited the public at large financially, it amounted to corrupt practice.

Sreedhara invoked the provisions of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1951 to allege that the election of a person who had indulged in corrupt practices must be set aside.

However, the court rejected this plea stating that since the allegations of corrupt practices is not against the candidate himself, they cannot interfere with the plea. The court however noted that the issue was of great importance and asked the Election Commission (EC) to pass some direction regarding it.

The order stated, "Considering that there is no enactment that directly governs the contents of the election manifesto, we hereby direct the Election Commission to frame guidelines for the same in consultation with all the recognized political parties as when it had acted while framing guidelines for general conduct of the candidates, meetings, processions, polling day, party in power etc."