New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the Centre for not setting up a permanent mechanism to track unnatural increase in the value of assets of legislators and other candidates contesting the polls during the last few years.
A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi granted two weeks to the Centre to spell out the steps taken in this regard. The bench also wanted to know as to why Form 26, which every candidate is required to fill, does not contain a declaration by the candidate that she does not suffer from disqualification under any provision of the Representation of the People Act.
The bench passed this order on a contempt petition filed by Lok Prahari based on whose petition the apex court had given a series of directions in February last year, inclu-ding setting up of a mec-hanism to assess and evaluate candidates’ ass-ets, which are on the incr-ease gradually and in some cases even beyond 100 per cent.
In a landmark judgment, the court had held that candidates and their family members are bound to disclose the source of their income at the time of filing nomination.
