IMPORTANT POINTS
Each contesting candidate shall fill up the form as provided by the Election Commission and the form must contain all the particulars as required therein.
It shall state, in bold letters, with regard to the criminal cases pending against the candidate.
If a candidate is contesting an election on the ticket of a particular party, he/she is required to inform the party about the criminal cases pending against him/her.
The concerned political party shall be obligated to put up on its website the aforesaid information pertaining to candidates having criminal antecedents.
The candidate as well as the concerned political party shall issue a declaration in the widely circulated newspapers in the locality about the antecedents of the candidate and also give wide publicity in the electronic media.

JUDGMENT :

Dipak Misra, CJI.

In Yogendra Kumar Jaiswal and others v. State of Bihar and others, (2016) 3 SCC 183 the Court opined:-

"Corruption, a 'noun' when assumes all the characteristics of a Verb', becomes self-infective and also develops resistance to antibiotics. In such a situation the disguised protagonist never puts a Hamletian question-"to be or not to be"-but marches ahead with perverted proclivity-sans concern, sans care for collective interest, and irrefragably without conscience. In a way, corruption becomes a national economic terror."

2. The constitutional functionaries, who have taken the pledge to uphold the constitutional principles, are charged with the responsibility to ensure that the existing political framework does not get tainted with the evil of corruption. However, despite this heavy mandate prescribed by our Constitution, our Indian democracy, which is the world's largest democracy, has seen a steady increase in the level of criminalization that has been creeping into the Indian polity. This unsettlingly increasing trend of criminalization of politics, to which our country has been a witness, tends to disrupt the constitutional ethos and strikes at the very root of our democratic form of government by making our citizenry suffer at the hands of those who are nothing but a liability to our country.

3. The issue that emerges for consideration before this Bench is whether disqualification for membership can be laid down by the Court beyond Article 102(a) to (d) and the law made by the Parliament under Article 102(e). A three-Judge Bench hearing the matter was of the view that this question is required to be addressed by the Constitution Bench under Article 145(3) of the Constitution. Be it stated, a submission was advanced before the three-Judge Bench that the controversy was covered by the decision in Manoj Narula v. Union of India, (2014) 9 SCC 1. The said submission was not accepted because of the view expressed by Madan B. Lokur, J. in his separate judgment.

4. In the course of hearing, the contour of the question was expanded with enormous concern to curb criminalization of politics in a democratic body polity. The learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that having regard to the rise of persons with criminal antecedents, the fundamental concept of decriminalization of politics should be viewed from a wider spectrum and this Court, taking into consideration the facet of interpretation, should assume the role of judicial statesmanship. Mr. K.K. Venugopal, learned Attorney General for India and other learned counsel, per contra, would submit that there can be no denial that this Court is the final arbiter of the Constitution and the Constitution empowers this wing of the State to lay down the norms of interpretation and show judicial statesmanship but the said judicial statesmanship should not ignore the fundamental law relating to separation of powers, primary responsibility conferred on the authorities under the respective powers and the fact that no authority should do anything for which the power does not flow from the Constitution. In essence, the submission of Mr. Venugopal is that the Court should not cross the ‘Lakshman Rekha’. Resting on the fulcrum of constitutional foundation and on the fundamental principle that if the Court comes to hold that it cannot legislate but only recommend for bringing in a legislation, as envisaged under Article 102(1)(e) of the Constitution, it would not be appropriate to take recourse to any other method for the simon pure reason that what cannot be done directly, should not be done indirectly. We shall advert to the said submission at a later stage.

5. Article 102 reads as follows:-

“102. Disqualifications for membership- (1) A person shall be disqualified for being chosen as, and for being, a member of either House of Parliament-

(a) if he holds any office of profit under the Government of India or the Government of any State, other than an office declared b