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Brajesh Singh v. Sunil Arora & Ors.

Contempt Petition (Civil) · 2021 INSC 388Decided 10 Aug 2021
Contempt Petition (Civil) No. 656 of 2020
Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman · Justice B.R. Gavai

Background

This contempt petition followed the Supreme Court's own earlier orders (in Public Interest Foundation and Rambabu Singh Thakur) directing political parties to publicly disclose, in newspapers and on social media, the criminal antecedents of candidates they field, along with reasons for selecting them despite pending criminal cases. An advocate, Brajesh Singh, brought to the Court's notice that several political parties contesting the 2020 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections had flagrantly disregarded these directions, filing vague or stereotyped "reasons" for fielding candidates facing serious charges including rape, attempted murder, and kidnapping, often citing nothing more than the candidate's "winnability" or being "popular in the area."

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court examined the compliance record of each political party named as a respondent and held several of them, including the BJP, JD(U), RJD, Congress, RLSP, and CPI, guilty of contempt of its 13 February 2020 order, for giving generic, copy-pasted justifications that did not genuinely explain why a candidate with a criminal record was chosen over one without, and for citing "winnability" as a reason despite the Court's earlier order expressly forbidding that. Taking a lenient view since this was the first election after the original directions, the Court imposed modest fines (Rs. 1 lakh on parties found in partial non-compliance, Rs. 5 lakh on two parties found in total non-compliance) rather than harsher contempt punishment, payable into a dedicated Election Commission awareness fund. It then issued fresh, strengthened directions: political parties must now publish criminal-antecedent information on their website homepages under a clear caption, the Election Commission must build a dedicated mobile app for voters to access this information, and the ECI must create a monitoring cell to promptly report future non-compliance to the Court.

Lesson Learnt

Political parties cannot comply with Supreme Court transparency directions only on paper, giving vague, copy-pasted, or "winnability"-based justifications for fielding candidates with serious criminal cases amounts to contempt of court, and voters are entitled to real, specific information about such candidates before they vote.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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