The committee’s call for a new law binding parties to their pre-poll/post-poll coalitions will require a consensus amongst parties to get the law amended.
NEW DELHI: The second administrative reforms commission headed by former Karnataka Chief Minister Verappa Moily has recommended major changes to the Representation of the People Act, 1951, to force MPs to seek re-election if their parties change coalitions or realign midstream, and barring people charged of heinous crimes from contesting elections. The report was presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday.
The report is bound to test the will of the political class. The committee’s call for a new law binding political parties to their pre-poll or post-poll coalitions, as well as seeking an amendment to bar people with criminal cases from contesting elections, will require a consensus amongst political parties to get the law amended.
In practical terms, the Commission’s recommendation that “if one or more political parties in a coalition with a common programme mandated by the electorate either explicitly before the elections or while the forming the government realign midstream then their MPs should seek re- election would make it very difficult for political parties like the Left or the NCP to withdraw support to the UPA government.
The Administrative Reforms Commission has called for an amendment to even disqualify people facing charges “related to grave and heinous offences and corruption”. If implemented, this would bar hundreds of legislators in the country and across the political spectrum from contesting the elections. Similarly the commission’s suggestion that the controversial MPLADs and MLALADs’ schemes be abolished is also likely to be opposed by sections of the political class. The report is recommendatory in nature and the governments are not duty bound to implement it.
Verappa Moily, the chairman of the Administrative Reforms Commission, said that the recommendations were based on global practices and some of the recommendations could even be implement without amending the constitution.
Yet another constitutional amendment suggested by the commission is for the appointment of a national ombudsman called the Rashtriya Lokayukta at the centre and a Lokayukta at the state level. Significantly, the Prime Minister has been kept out of its purview. The jurisdiction of the Rashtriya Lokayukta will extend to all ministers of the union, save the PM, all chief ministers, MPs and all those who hold public offices equivalent in rank to that of a union minister.
The commission has also called for the creation of a National Judicial Council and a collegium to deal with the appointment of judges. The report has suggested that the Council should be headed by the Vice President as its chairman, while the Prime Minister, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Chief Justice of India, Law Minister and Leader of the Opposition in both house of Parliament, as its members.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}