LAWS(UTN)-2019-10-6

VIPUL JAIN Vs. STATE OF UTTARAKHAND

Decided On October 17, 2019
Vipul Jain Appellant
V/S
STATE OF UTTARAKHAND Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) "The Indian voter shall not be hijacked from the course of free and fair elections by mob muscle methods, or subtle perversion of discretion by men 'dressed in little, brief authority'. For 'be you ever so high, the law is above you". So said Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer in Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commr.(1978) 1 SCC 405.

(2.) Corruption has the potential of corroding the marrows of the economy. Corruption is not to be judged by degree, for corruption mothers disorder, destroys societal will to progress, accelerates underserved ambition, kills the conscience, jettisons the glory of the institutions, paralyses the economic health of a country, corrodes the sense to civility and mars the marrows of governance. (Niranjan Hemchandra Sashittal and another vs. State of Maharashtra, (2013) 4 SCC 642). Corrupt Electoral practices make a mockery of holding free and fair elections, and weaken democratic structures more particularly at the grass-root level ie the panchayat raj institutions.

(3.) The petitioners cry, before this Court, is that foreign jaunts, expensive holidays for voters, both within the country and abroad, kidnapping and threatening them (elected representatives of the Kshetra and Zila Panchayats), luring them with large sums of money on the eve of elections are among the factors which determine the flawed outcomes in the indirect elections to the offices of Block Pramukhs, and Chairmen of Zila Panchayats in the State: both the State Government and the State Election Commission have done little to curb this menace which plague indirect elections to the second and third tier Panchayati Raj institutions; and intervention by the High Court, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, is their only hope of ensuring free and fair elections.