In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court on Monday held that seeking votes in the name of religion, race, caste, community or language amounted to a corrupt practice and the election of a candidate is liable to be set aside whether such an appeal was made by the candidate, his/her agent or anyone on his/her behalf.
The court rejected arguments that a distinction has to be made between appeal from the candidate for himself and a similar appeal on his behalf by others. The court said that there may be several circumstances when appeals are made in the name of religion during elections and this will straightway attract disqualification.
A seven-judge bench, comprising Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justices M.B. Lokur, S.A. Bobde, A. K. Goel, Uday Lalit, D. Y. Chandrachud and L. Nageswar Rao, delivered this judgement by a majority of 4:3.
DC Take
It will not be wrong to say that caste and religion form the mainstay of politics in India. Against this background, the judgement of the Supreme Court imposing a ban on seeking votes in the name of religion is indeed landmark. It will be interesting to see how this decision impacts the upcoming Assembly elections in five states.
