[GJM] A Response to: Only Criminals Must be Allowed to Contest Elections in India : Dr. M.K. Sherwani

[ecotort at gn.apc.org]

LOVE IS THE LAW, LOVE UNDER WILL!

DO NO HARM! -except where from the view-point of the reasonable, prudent,
well-intentioned person; it would reasonably be seen as necessary to do such
harm in the circumstances.


-in law, any harm done in circumstancs other than these 
is either:

(i)accidental - ie; negligence (not criminal; a matter of damages only, decided
in a civil court).

(ii)done knowingly - ie; reckless (criminal penalties wll be imposed, civil
damages may also be awarded).

(iii)intentional - intentional harm is seriously criminal (maximum criminal
penalties imposed. civil damages may also be awarded).

(iv)criminal negligence - is where a person did not bother to find out if an
accident could reasonably have been forseeable as likely to happen in the
circumstances. (criminal penalties may be imposed, civil damages may also be
awarded).

or an act of insanity...



SEE [WWW.ECOTORT.GN.APC.ORG] for an in-depth argument supporting this viewpoint,
and possibly proposing some reasonable, prudent, well-intentioned 'pruning' and
'planting' in our collective world culture, to the benefit of the global
environment we all have to share!








Quoting Sherwani Mustafa <sherwanimk at yahoo.com>:

> www.hindustantimes.com( March,17,07)
> ------------------------------------------------------
> MPs' panel rejects plan to bar 'criminals' from polls
> Aloke Tikku & Chetan Chauhan
> New Delhi, March 15, 2007
>   ( Full text reproduced at the end)
> -----------------------------------------------------
>    
>     In order to make our democratic institutions
> strong and impart perfect maturity to our largest
> democracy of the world, it is most imperative that the
> Parliament must immediately make the following
> amendments in the Constitution, the Representation of
> the Peoples Act and other related enactments:
> 
> Minimum qualifications for the candidates aspiring to
> contest elections:
> 
> 1. For corporator : Must be accused of at teast two
> robberies and five kidnappings
> 
> 2. For MLA ( Legislative Assemblies):Must be accused
> of  at least two murders and five dacoities.
> 
> 3. For Member of Parliament : Must be accused of at
> least five murders and ten dacoities.
> 
> 4. For becoming a Minister both in the state and the
> Centre: The minimum requirement is  that the candidate
> must be accused of  at least five murders, ten
> dacoities,  twenty robberies and fifty kidnappings.
>  
>  Explanation: If anybody has been convicted of any of
> the offences mentioned  from clauses 1 to four, it
> will be considered an additional qualification, and
> efforts must be made to withdraw  the lesser competent
> candidates ( those who are simply accused and not
> convicted) from the electoral fray. 
> 
>  ----------------------------------------------- 
> Dr. Mustafa Kamal Sherwani, LL.D.
> Former President, All India Muslim Forum
> 3, Sherwani Nagar, Sitapur Road, Lucknow , India
> 
> Presently,Dean, Faculty of Law and Shariah
> Zanzibar University, Tanzania
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------
> MPs' panel rejects plan to bar 'criminals' from polls
> Aloke Tikku & Chetan Chauhan
> New Delhi, March 15, 2007
>  
>  There should be no bar on people including Abu Salem
> contesting elections from jail; only if they are on
> the run.
> 
> A parliamentary panel has rejected a proposal that
> people against whom courts have framed charges for
> heinous offences should be barred from contesting
> elections. Instead, the committee recommended fast
> track courts that would dispose of cases against
> politicians within a six-month period.
> 
> It has also recommended striking out names of accused
> pronounced proclaimed offenders by a court from the
> voters' list. This would effectively bar fugitives
> from the law as candidates need to be enrolled as
> voters.
> 
> The committee headed by Congress MP EM Sudarsana
> Natchiappan was asked to report on the Election
> Commission-backed proposal to keep out criminals if a
> court has found prima facie evidence against them. Abu
> Salem at the back of his mind, Prime Minister Manmohan
> Singh had last December asked for the report "at the
> earliest".
> 
> "We are genuinely keen to end criminalisation of
> politics," Natchiappan said, pointing that India
> follows the Anglo-Saxon principle of presumed innocent
> till proven guilty. The MP insisted that it would be
> unfair to bar a person from contesting elections at
> the stage of framing of charges by a court — a stage
> where the accused does not get to defend himself and
> question the available evidence — when he may be later
> acquitted.
> 
> Political parties — that have blocked police reforms
> for more than two decades — had also opposed the
> disqualification proposal on the ground that police
> investigations were not independent and controlled by
> the political executive. The committee saw merit in
> this argument; Natchiappan said the fear was real.
> 
> "Till police reforms take place and a proper system is
> in place, we cannot open the floodgates," the MP said,
> worried that pliant policemen would foist false cases
> against their opponents to disqualify them. A vigilant
> electorate and civil society, he suggested, was a
> better insurance against criminals in legislature.
> 
> News reports on Abu Salem thinking of contesting
> elections had prompted Chief Election Commissioner N
> Gopalaswami to remind Manmohan Singh about the
> "lurking danger" in October last year. Unless the law
> is amended, Gopalaswami wrote, people like Salem
> "could become Members of the august Houses of
> Parliament and state legislatures".
> 
> The Law Commission had made a similar recommendation
> in 1999; the National Commission to Review the Working
> of the Constitution also came to the same conclusion
> three years later. In July 2004, the election
> commission sent its proposals on electoral reforms to
> Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; keeping criminals out
> was one of them.
> 
> But the opinion on the disqualification rule within
> the UPA government is divided. The Union home ministry
> objects to this rule and last month argued in favour
> of status quo till the government found a "foolproof
> or nearly a foolproof solution".
> 
> Union Law Minister HR Bhardwaj, however, had backed
> the proposal, asserting that the accused may get
> acquitted in some cases but this price had to be paid
> in view of the "very pertinent dimensions of the
> problem".
> 
> An estimate way back in 1996 had suggested that nearly
> 1,500 candidates in the parliamentary elections had
> criminal records; 40 of them even got elected.
> 
> Around the same time, over 700 of the 4,072 sitting
> MLAs in state assemblies had criminal records. A
> Citizens Report on Governance and Development released
> last year found nearly 25 per cent of the Lok Sabha
> had one or the other criminal case registered against
> them.
> 
> Email Aloke Tikku: atikku at hindustantimes.com
>  
>  
> 
> 
> Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com 
> 
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