The EC issued directions to the parties on October 10, 2018 and March 6, 2020 in compliance with the SC’s orders, making it mandatory for all parties to publish the details on their websites.

Flagging what it called was a “deliberate act of contempt” by political parties, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on Monday wrote to the Election Commission seeking action against parties that fail to publish details of criminal antecedents of candidates as per orders of the Supreme Court and the poll panel.

The apex court had on September 25, 2018 directed all political parties to publish the details of criminal antecedents of their candidates, including the reason for selecting them. Hearing a contempt petition on its order not being implemented, the Supreme Court on February 13, 2020 directed the parties to list out the reasons for nominating such candidates within 72 hours of their selection. The EC issued directions to the parties on October 10, 2018 and March 6, 2020 in compliance with the SC’sorders, making it mandatory for all parties to publish the details on their websites.

The ADR said it moved the court again to raise the issue of parties not complying with the earlier orders. It said the court directed ADR on March 17 to “pursue its remedies before the Election Commission”, leading to Monday’s letter to the three-member commission.

“In this backdrop, ADR is seeking strict action to be initiated against the defaulting political parties, which had contested 2023 Assembly elections held in Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Karnataka, 2022 Assembly elections held in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur and Punjab and 2021 Assembly elections held in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and UT of Puducherry,” the letter said.

The ADR said its analysis of C2 and C7 forms, which contain the information on criminal antecedents in a prescribed format published by parties from 2021 to 2023, showed that several parties “regardless
of their current political outreach and popularity, did not have a functional website to publish details.”

“On the other hand, a few political parties that did have a website link, had not bothered to maintain this crucial information and/or had inaccessible web pages. While giving reasons for fielding candidates with criminal cases, the political parties had just copy-pasted the same reasons for different candidates. There were yet other parties which had a separate section on election information, but they either failed to upload necessary documents or had dysfunctional website tabs,” the ADR said.