Supreme Court issues notices on ‘freebies’ during elections amid public finance concerns, seeks response from Centre, EC

The Supreme Court of India (SC) has issued notices to the Centre and Election Commission of India (ECI) seeking responses on a petition opposing “freebies” promised during elections, PTI reported on October 15.

An SC bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra issued notices to the Union of India and the EC regarding a plea filed by Bengaluru resident Shashank J Sreedhara, it added.

Criticism of ‘Unregulated Promises’

“The unregulated promise of freebies imposes a significant and unaccounted financial burden on the public exchequer. Further, there exists no mechanism to ensure the fulfilment of pre-poll promises on which votes were secured,” the plea said.

The plea asked the court to direct the EC to “take effective steps to restrain political parties from making promises of freebies during the pre-election period”. As per the report, advocate Srinivasan filed it for the petitioner.

Multiple Pleas on Issue

The apex court has tagged the petition with other similar pleas on the issue. Senior advocate Vijay Hansaria, appearing for lawyer and PIL petitioner Ashwini Upadhyay, raised earlier pleas. The SC agreed to hear the pleas after Hansaria sought an urgent hearing of the matter.

Upadhyay's plea said there should be a total ban on populist measures to gain undue political favour from voters as they violate the Constitution, and the EC should take suitable deterrent measures.

It also urged the court to declare that the promise of irrational freebies from public funds before elections unduly influences the voters, disturbs the level playing field and vitiates the purity of the poll process.

“Petitioner submits that the recent trend of political parties to influence voters by offering freebies with an eye on elections is not only the greatest threat to the survival of democratic values but also injures the spirit of the Constitution,” the plea said.

“This unethical practice is just like giving bribes to the electorate at the cost of the exchequer to stay in power and must be avoided to preserve democratic principles and practices,” it said.

Request for SC to Act

The petition sought a direction to the EC to insert an additional condition in the relevant paragraphs of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order 1968, which deals with conditions for recognition as a state party, that a “political party shall not promise/distribute irrational freebies from the public fund before the election”.

The petitioner has urged the apex court to declare that the promise or distribution of private goods or services, which are not for public purposes from public funds, before the elections violates several articles of the Constitution, including Article 14.

(With inputs from PTI)