Friends, have you heard about ADR related to the Indian election process? It is “ Association for Democratic Reforms” working on electoral reforms for over 25 years. The objective of ADR is to improve governance and strengthen democracy through continuous work in Electoral and Political Reforms. They focus on:
- Corruption and Criminalisation in the Political Process.
- Empowerment of the electorate through greater dissemination of information relating to the candidates and the parties for a better and informed choice.
- Need for greater accountability of Indian Political parties.
- Need for inner-party democracy and transparency in party-functioning.
ADR engages with partner organization across the country, collectively called the National Election Watch (NEW)- a nation wide campaign comprising of citizen led organizations working towards strengthening democracy. They have conducted election watches for all Assembly & Parliamentary elections since 2002. Election Watch is the flagship programme of ADR. As part of this, background details of politicians are provided to citizens to help them make an informed choice during elections.
ADR’s Political Party Watch programme is aimed at bringing more financial transparency and accountability in the functioning of political parties.
ADR files PIL/Appeals related to electoral & political reforms with the courts Central Information Commission etc.
Here are some of the achievements of ADR:
1 2002– The Election Commission completed a massive exercise based on the Gujarat Election Watch report to verify information filed by te candidates in the nomination papers and affidavits, and had started proceedings against candidates with false declarations.
2 May 2002 and March 2003– ADR’s petition resulted in a landmark judgment by the Supreme Court (SC) by making it mandatory for the candidates contesting elections to Parliament and State Assemblies to file self sworn affidavits (Form 26) declaring full information regarding their criminal, financial and educational background. In keeping with the spirit of the judgment, at the All India State Election Commissioners’ (SEC) conference held in in July 2003, all the SEC had unanimously resolved to implement the disclosure rules in local body election also.
3 September 2003– A Bill on Electoral Expenses was passed in Parliament. The Election Commission (EC) has taken it one-step forward and asked candidates to file a statement of expenses in every three days during campaign.
4 2005– Bihar Election Watch in Oct-Nov 2005 resulted in intense pressure on Chief Minister Designate due to extensive media coverage of candidate background. As a result for the first time,, Bihar had a council of Ministers without any known criminal record.
5 April 2008– ADR obtained a landmark judgment from the Central Information Commission (CIC) saying that Income Tax Returns of Political Parties would now be available in the public domain along with the assessment orders.
6 2008– I the Karnataka Assembly Elections, 2008, there was reduction in the number of candidates wit serious offenses put up by parties. It came down to 93 in 2008 from 217 in the 2004 election.
7 2008– Overall, the percentage of candidates with pending criminal cases came down from 20% to 14% in the assembly elections held in the country in 2008 for the state of Rajasthan, Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Mizoram.
8 2009– A large number of candidates with serious pending cases that contested Lok Sabha elections like Pappu Yadav, Atiq Ahmed, Mukhtar Ansari, Akhilesh Singh, etc. lost.
9 2009– The number of total serious IPC sections against MPs decreased from 296 in Lok Sabha in 2004 to 274 in Lok Sabha 2009.
10 Jan 2010– Both the Congress President Sonia Gandhi and the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj of BJP made public statements calling for a consensus on barring candidates with criminal backgrounds from contesting elections.
11 Feb 2010– PM Manmohan Singh asked his cabinet colleagues to disclose details of their assets and liabilities and refrain from dealing with the government on immovable property.
12 Jan 2011– details of the movable and immovable assets of 30 Bihar ministers, including that of CM Nitish Kumar, were uploaded on the government website.
13 June 2011– After a two-year long RTI battle, crucial information on the ‘Registers of Members’ Interest’ was finally mandated by the CIC to be available in the public domain.
14 Oct 2012– The Election Commission asked the Ministry of Home affairs to probe violations of the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) and the Representation of Peoples’ Act (RPA) by major political parties which reportedly received foreign contributions.
15 Dec 2012– ADR/NEW released an analysis of the number of politicians charged with crimes against women. ADR/NEW’s recommendation and data was also widely quoted by the Justice Verma committee in its report.
16 June 2013– The CIC in an effort towards making political parties transparent as well as accountable in their functioning, declared the six national parties BJP, INC, BSP, CPI, CPI(M), as public authorities. All six parties refused to comply with CIC’s order. In 2015, a petition was filed in the SC to implement CIC’s order by bringing them under the preview of RTI act 2005.
17 July 2013– The SC delivered a judgment on a petition filed by Lily Thomas and Lok Prahari NGO (ADR intervened) setting aside clause 8($) of the Representation of the People Act. As a result of which sitting MPs and MLAs were barred from holding office on being Convicted in a Court of Law.
18 Sept 2013– The SC ruled that the right to register a “ none of the above (NOTA)” vote in election should apply and ordered Election Commission (EC) to provide such a button in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). ADR had intervened in this matter.
19 May 2014– In Ashok Chavan paid news case, the SC had passed a judgment holding the EC has the power to disqualify a candidate in relation to filing of false election expenditure statement under Section 10A of RPA. ADR had intervened in the case supporting the stand of the EC.
20 Feb 2018– On a petition of Lok Prahari regarding disproportionate asset increase of MPs, MLAs. THESC made it mandatory for candidates to declare sources of income of spouse & dependents in Form 26 of affidavits. ADR had intervened in the matter & also provided all necessary data.
21 Mar 2023– ON ADR’s petition challenging the constitutional validity of the practice of the appointments of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioner (EC) by the Executive, the SC gave a landmark judgment in favour of ADR by directing the appointment of Members of the Election Commission to be done on the advice of a committee comprising of Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India, and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
22 Feb 2024– On ADR’s petition challenging the Finance Act 2017, Electoral Bonds and Removal of Company’s limit, the SC gave a landmark judgment in favour of ADR by holding the anonymous, unregulated and unlimited funding through electoral bonds and companies as unconstitutional.
23 Apr 20244– The SC refused ADR’s prayer for counting 100% VVPATs in all EVMs but directed the Election Commission to-
a-seal and store Symbol Loading Unit (SLU) for a period of 45 days.
b- a system of cross-verification on a request made by candidates within 7 days after the declaration of results.
It looks like ADR has done a wonderful job in the field of election reforms, which we as general public were not aware of. Hats off to this Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR).
Waiting for your feedback on this blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
17th October 2024