Supreme Court may tackle criminalisation of politics (again)

Can a legislator be disqualified if and when a chargesheet is filed against him or should it be done only upon conviction? The Supreme Court has referred this question to a Constitution Bench..The Court was hearing three petitions – two of them filed in 2011 by the NGO Public interest Foundation and former Chief Election Commissioner JM Lyngdoh, and the third filed in 2015 by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyaya..The petitioner Public Interest Foundation has made the following prayers in its petition:.(a) lay down appropriate guidelines/ framework to ensure that those charged with serious criminal offences are unable to enter the political arena by contesting elections.b) lay down a time frame of six months during which trial of such persons are concluded in a time bound manner;.c) direct the Central Government to implement the directions passed by this Court in Dinesh Trivedi, P. and others vs. Union of India (UOI) and others (1997) 4 SCC 306 in letter and spirit;.d) direct the Union of India to consider the feasibility of enacting legislation to deal with the menace of criminalization of politics and debar those charged with serious offences from contesting elections of any sort;.e) declare the provisions of Section 8(4) of the Representation of People Act as ultra vires..The Court in a landmark judgment in Lily Thomas v. Union of India had declared Section 8(4) of the RP Act as unconstitutional..This judgment had rendered prayer (e) made by the petitioner infructuous..This provision, S.8(4) of the RP Act, provided sitting MPs and MLAs an additional layer of protection from disqualification in case s/he is convicted of certain offences..The provision provided for a period of 3 months within which the convicted sitting MP/MLA cannot be disqualified. Furthermore, if the sitting MP/MLA were to file an appeal or revision within these three months from the date of conviction, s/he could not be disqualified until the appeal or revision were disposed..The question before the court in this petition now is whether such disqualification should run from the date of framing of charge by the court instead of waiting for the conclusion of the trial..The Court had sought the opinion of the Law Commission on this issue and the Law Commission had answered the query in the affirmative. It had come to the conclusion that disqualification upon conviction has proved to be incapable of curbing the growing criminalisation of politics, owing to long delays in trials coupled with a low conviction rate..The Commission had suggested that law needs to evolve to pose an effective deterrence and recommended that disqualification at the stage of charging will have significant potential in curbing the spread of criminalisation of politics provided it is accompanied by adequate legal safeguards. It had also suggested adequate safeguards for the same..Subsequently, a Division Bench comprising Justices RM Lodha and Kurian Joseph had, by way of an interim order, directed the trial courts to complete proceedings against sitting MPs and MLAs within one year of framing of the charge in cases involving punishment of two years or more. It had also mandated that if a trial court failed to complete the trial within that period, it would have to explain the reasons for the failure to the Chief Justice of the concerned High Court..When the matter was heard yesterday, a Bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Arun Mishra and PC Pant directed the matter be placed before the Chief Justice to constitute a larger Bench to hear the matter.