INTRODUCTION
The Supreme Court bench has observed that the candidates have won the legislative assembly or the Lok Sabha elections and are elected from jail in India. This was pointed while hearing the plea of Subhash Chandra Yadav, who was seeking interim or the provisional bail in a money laundering case for contesting in the Jharkhand Assembly elections.
BACKGROUND
The accused Subhash Chandra Yadav was alleged to have engaged in the illegal sand mining, without issuance of e-transit challans. This caused huge loss of revenue to the government. After the investigation, ED filed a complaint against Yadav and the special court took cognizance of the offence. He was arrested by ED and put him behind bars of Patna jail.
Later, He filed the nomination as a candidate for Jharkhand assembly elections and applied for bail application before the Patna High Court to enable him to campaign for elections. When he found that hearing of bail plea before the elections were bleak, he filed the Writ Petition before the High Court. However, the petition was dismissed by the Patna High Court because the bench don’t find filing the criminal Writ Application for interim bail is just and proper to pass an order in favour of petitioner as the regular bail application filed was still pending.
The impugned dismissal order of High Court was challenged in the Supreme Court. He relied on the Arvind Kejriwal v. Directorate of Enforcement case, where candidate was granted interim bail by this court.
KEY IDEAS
- CANDIDATES HAVE RIGHT TO CONTEST ELECTIONS FROM JAIL
The Supreme Court has pointed out that the jailed candidates have filed for nominations for various positions of assembly or Lok Sabha elections and have claimed their right to contest for elections from the jail. Few of them have even won the Lok Sabha elections such as Amritpal Singh, Engineer Rashid. There are precedents such as Afzal Ansari v. State of UP where the court had allowed even the convicted person to restore his membership in Lok Sabha and not to be disqualified to contest in future election(s).
- INTERIM BAIL IN PMLA CASES FOR ELECTION CAMPAIGNING
The request for the order of interim bail was requested by Yadav taking the precedent of Arvind Kejriwal case into consideration, where he was Party chief was granted the interim bail for campaigning for the assembly elections. However, such prayer by Yadav was objected by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) citing that if such prayer allowed, it will become reason for anyone to file nomination to seek interim bail in Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases. The Public Prosecutor has also taken time to use the opportunity to oppose the bail application as per the Section 45 of the PMLA.
CONCLUSION
The Supreme Court gave a remarkable observation that the candidates have got an opportunity to contest from the jail in various assembly and Lok Sabha elections, then securing the positions by winning the elections. This highlights the rights given to the accused as well as the convict to claim their right to contest in elections and represent the country. It was pointed that such candidates are given interim bail for election purposes such as campaigning and mark their presence on day of elections.
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WRITTEN BY: SOUJANYA V
