Work Done and Results until December 2003

ADR won two landmark judgment from the Supreme Court mandating disclosure of criminal, financial and educational background of candidates contesting elections. It worked with the Election Commission to ensure that ordinary citizens have a right to access the information declared by candidates. It also worked with the media since October 2002 and has played a significant role in bringing this issue to light. It has built up a network of partner NGOs in different states and has been actively involved with them in doing Citizen Election Watch work exposing the criminal and financial background of candidates. So far, this has been done on Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh.

Several other unexpected positive outcomes are also described below.

ADR filed the original petition in December 1999 in the Delhi High Court asking for candidate disclosure. The petition was upheld in November 2000. The Government of India and the Congress Party (the main opposition party at that time) filed an appeal in the Supreme Court in January 2001. ADR met the EC and persuaded them to support its plea. Subsequently the EC filed an affidavit agreeing to ADR’s point of view. On May 2, 2002, one and a half years later, the Supreme Court upheld ADR’s plea and issued orders to the EC to implement its orders. The EC did so on June 28, 2002.

On July 8, 2002, an all party meet decided to bring in legislation overturning the judgment. For the first time the extreme left and right parties reached unanimity. On July 15, they circulated a draft Bill. A network of NGOs including ADR met the President, Dr. Abdul Kalam, and various political leaders including Venkiah Naidu and Manmohan Singh. The purpose was to press them not to pass the Bill. The President in fact returned the Ordinance without signing it. However, he was forced to sign it when it was sent back to him by the Cabinet.

ADR and more than 10 other NGOs filed three separate petitions challenging the new Ordinance. They argued that since the Bill restricted a fundamental right, popularly called the ‘right to information’ and more correctly, ‘freedom of expression’ under Article 19(1)(a), it was unconstitutional. On March 13, 2003, the Supreme Court struck down the Act as unconstitutional.

Now candidates have to declare their financial (assets and liabilities of self, spouse and dependents), criminal (past convictions and current cases in which charges have been framed) and their educational qualifications in a sworn affidavit. This is only for information and cannot be grounds for disqualifications unless it goes against the provisions of the Representation of People Act. The new judgment also removes the right of returning officers to reject nomination papers on the basis of false information. However, they can reject incomplete or blank affidavits.

ADR then worked with the Election Commission to get them to issue orders stating specifically that any citizen had a right to get photocopies of the nomination papers and affidavits filed by candidates. The EC subsequently ahs issued such orders.

In December 2002, ADR formed a Gujarat Election Watch Committee that collected, summarized and disseminated information on criminal background of candidates to the media, Supreme Court judges, political leaders, NGOs and senior Government officials. It also networked with other NGOs to get wider participation.

It then held a National Workshop in May 2003 in Ahmedabad to spread this to other states, in particular, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh where Assembly polls were held on December 1, 2003. The workshop was inaugurated by the Election Commissioner, Mr.T.S.Krishnamurthy and was attended by NGOs from these states and other states.

The outcome of this workshop was that NGOs from these states decided to take up Election Watches. ADR was invited to workshops held in these states and participated to share their experiences. It also helped these states to establish working relationships with the Election Commission and its machinery. Successful Election Watches were held in these states and candidate background was disseminated to the media. It was also covered well in the press and electronic media in these states.

ADR has built up good working relationships with the National media and with the leading newspapers and TV channels in Gujarat. In the initial days, Adr went and personally met the top ten Gujarati media Editors and sought their help. A significant outcome was the extensive coverage of corruption during the Gujarat Elections. Later this was picked by the National media and corruption has become a national issue. People from ADR also participated in some of these programs.

However, even more significant was the public statements made by the two major political parties that they were asking potential candidates to declare their criminal and financial information to party bosses before they would be given tickets to contest. The two parties also said that they would not give tickets to people with criminal records. However, this was not entirely true, and such people did contest. At the same time, the process of weeding out controversial candidates has started, although a lot more ground needs to be covered.

ADR is clear that the pressure needs to be sustained. NGOs from several states have come forward to work on this issue. We plan to host workshops in different states to kick start the process. In line with ADR’s policy, all accounts will be made public and will also be on our website (www.adrindia.org).

On July 5, 2003, all State Election Commissioners met in Bangalore and decided to extend the Supreme Court judgment mandating candidate disclosure to local elections, including Panchayat, Municipal, Zilla and Block level elections. The Judgment applied only to Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and Assembly elections.

In 2003, Parliament passed a Bill putting a limit of Rs.10 lakhs on expenditure for Lok Sabha and Rs.9 lakhs for Assembly elections. It now includes the money spent on behalf of a candidate by the political party, his or her friends and relatives. Earlier this was not so. The new Act however exempts expenditure incurred on behalf of a candidate by 20 designated National level leaders (PM, Dy PM and so on). The Election Commission issued orders that candidates would have to file expense statements every three days with the Returning Officer and that any citizen can access these statements.

One criticism of ADR’s efforts has been its single focus on Election Watches and criminalization. Another criticism has been that it has not had any impact on election outcomes. Both these are valid criticisms.

However, ADR feels that given its limited resources a focused approach is more practical. It has also helped to diffuse it to different states unlike other more comprehensive strategies. However, ADR has worked on voter roll verification, and partner NGOs have taken up additional work in their states including voter roll verification, ‘open platforms’ inviting candidates to spell out their agenda and position on important issues and so on.

On the second criticism, ADR’s position has been that Election Watch is not so much to influence voters (except perhaps to go out and vote) as to put pressure on party bosses to stop giving tickets to controversial candidates. To a limited extent this has happened since the process of inner party scrutiny has started.

The action plan is to continue to put pressure, spread around the country. Pressure will also come from keeping opinion makers fully informed. For instance, details on criminal and other background information in a professionally complied report was and will be sent to the Supreme Court Judges, political party leaders, MPs, Attorney General, Supreme Court Bar Association, State Bar Associations, all Secretaries and Chief Secretaries, DG Police, High Court Judges, Editors of newspapers (including the vernacular ones), electronic media, NGOs and the internet. ADR believes that in 15 to 20 years things will improve with sustained focused effort with partner NGOs in different states.

In simple terms, the action plan is three pronged. One, to identify and bring on board NGOs and individuals from different states. Fortunately, we already have a good network in about 10 states, and are confident we can extend this to other states. Two, to establish relationship with local media in these states. Three, to establish relations with the Government machinery.

ADR’s role will be as a catalyst and support organization. We will organize the workshops in collaboration with local NGOs, and use our contacts with the Election Commission and the media to get support for these NGOs. We will also play a role in dissemination.

Time is of the essence. We need to organize perhaps four regional workshops to start the process with interested NGOs. These workshops will also be used to gain media support and attention, and also as a platform to establish working relations with state level officials in the Election Commission. The (Central) Election Commission in Delhi has already agreed to attend two such workshops in the past. We have no doubt that they will continue to support these workshops by sending their senior offcials and asking the stae level Election Officers to participate. After these workshops, each state would require a minimum of two to three months to gear up for an effective election watch.

Unfortunately, the date of the Lok Sabha elections has not been announced and there is some speculation that they may be advanced before their due date sometime in September 2004.