[1]Hyderabad: In a major shock to YSR Congress which is pinning hopes for a return to power in coming polls, the judgment of the Supreme Court barring persons who in jail or police custody from contesting polls will likely shut doors for its chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy who was planning to contest the 2014 general elections.
A bench comprising Justices A.K. Patnaik and Justice S.J. Mukhopadhayay, upholding a verdict of the Patna High Court barring people in police custody to contest polls, said, “We do not find any infirmity in the findings of the High Court in the common order that a person who has no right to vote by virtue of the provisions of sub-section (5) of Section 62 of the Representation of Peoples’ Act 1951 is not an elector and is therefore not qualified to contest the election to the House of the People or the Legislative Assembly of a State.”
Besides Jaganmohan Reddy, Gali Janardhan Reddy, former minister of Karnataka, Mopidevi Venkata Ramana, former Andhra Pradesh excise minister are under judicial custody in Chanchalguda Central Prison.
Gali Janardhan Reddy is facing prison in illegal mining case of Obulapuram Mining Company and Jagan-mohan Reddy and Mopidevi are languishing in jail as undertrials in illegal investments case.
Praduymna Kumar Reddy, one of the leading criminal lawyers of the AP High Court said, that the latest Supreme Court verdict will put an end to era of under-trial politicians fighting polls from behind the bars.
“Once the Apex Court ruled that the person who is behind the bars is no more is an elector, the question of contesting him polls does not arise,” he added.
C. Nageswar Rao, former public prosecutor opined that the finding of the apex court would not have any bar for the persons who are on bail.
The lawyer said granting of bail amounts to be pending trial in a case and as along as trial is pending; the person has every right to vote and contest in elections.The order will also be effective for panchayat polls.
Jailbirds can’t contest
Ridhima Malhotra
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday barred persons lodged behind bars from contesting polls to legislative bodies, its second consecutive verdict in the direction of cleansing the nation’s politics of people with criminal antecedents.
The apex court said that a person who is in judicial or police custody cannot contest elections to local civic bodies, state Assemblies or Parliament. It stated that the disqualification would not be applicable to a person subjected to preventive detention under any law.
A bench comprising Justices A.K. Patnaik and S.J. Mukhopadhaya ruled that only an “elector” can contest the polls and he/she ceases to have the right to cast a vote due to confinement in prison or being in the custody of the police. “If a jailed person can’t vote, a jailed person can’t contest elections,” the bench remarked.
“The right to vote is a statutory right, the law gives it and the law takes it away. Persons convicted of crime are kept away from elections.
The court has no hesitation in interpreting the Constitution and the laws framed under it, that persons in the lawful custody of the police also will not be voters, in which case they will neither be electors. The law temporarily takes away the power of such persons to go anywhere near the election scene,” it said.
Referring to the Represe-ntation of the People Act, the bench said that Sections 4 and 5 lay down the qualifications for membership of the House of the People and Legislative Assembly and one of the qualifications laid down is that he must be an elector.
The bench said Section 62(5) of the Act says no person shall vote at any election if he is confined in a prison, whether under a sentence of imprisonment or transportation or otherwise, or is in the lawful custody of the police.
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