Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
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 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
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deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 73
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Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
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Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
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Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
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 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
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deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 74
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Code Context
            if (Configure::read('debug')) {

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    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
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</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
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		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Reverse gear on electoral reforms -Jagdeep S Chhokar&#039;,
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-Live Mint
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &amp;quot;save&amp;quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &amp;quot;paid news&amp;quot;.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan&#039;s election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted to EC.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Another example of the ministry&#039;s approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &amp;quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission&#039;s deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon&#039;ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;
Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;Live Mint, 19 May, 2013, http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/5eXknllKwHtXLUG3iFm99H/Reverse-gear-on-electoral-reforms.html&#039;,
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-Live Mint



Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system


The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do,...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;-Live Mint&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &amp;quot;save&amp;quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &amp;quot;paid news&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan&#039;s election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted to EC.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Another example of the ministry&#039;s approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &amp;quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission&#039;s deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon&#039;ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
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	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
-Live Mint
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &amp;quot;save&amp;quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &amp;quot;paid news&amp;quot;.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan&#039;s election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted to EC.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Another example of the ministry&#039;s approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &amp;quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission&#039;s deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon&#039;ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;
Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;Live Mint, 19 May, 2013, http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/5eXknllKwHtXLUG3iFm99H/Reverse-gear-on-electoral-reforms.html&#039;,
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-Live Mint



Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system


The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do,...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;div align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;-Live Mint&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &amp;quot;save&amp;quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &amp;quot;paid news&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan&#039;s election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted to EC.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Another example of the ministry&#039;s approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &amp;quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission&#039;s deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon&#039;ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
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Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system


The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do,..."/>
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                <strong>Reverse gear on electoral reforms -Jagdeep S Chhokar</strong></h1>
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                <div align="justify">-Live Mint</div><p align="justify"><br /><em>Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system</em></p><p align="justify">The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.</p><p align="justify">An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar's stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.</p><p align="justify">This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&quot;.</p><p align="justify">It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &quot;save&quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &quot;paid news&quot;.</p><p align="justify">The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan's election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted to EC.</p><p align="justify">By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.</p><p align="justify">Another example of the ministry's approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar's predecessors.</p><p align="justify">If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.</p><p align="justify">Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.</p><p align="justify">The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission's deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon'ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&quot;</p><p align="justify">Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.<br />Here's hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.</p><p align="justify"><em>Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.</em></p>               </font>
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		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Reverse gear on electoral reforms -Jagdeep S Chhokar&#039;,
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-Live Mint
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &amp;quot;save&amp;quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &amp;quot;paid news&amp;quot;.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan&#039;s election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted to EC.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Another example of the ministry&#039;s approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &amp;quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission&#039;s deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon&#039;ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;
Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
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-Live Mint



Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system


The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do,...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;-Live Mint&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &amp;quot;save&amp;quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &amp;quot;paid news&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan&#039;s election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted to EC.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Another example of the ministry&#039;s approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &amp;quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission&#039;s deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon&#039;ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
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	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 21050,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Reverse gear on electoral reforms -Jagdeep S Chhokar&#039;,
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-Live Mint
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &amp;quot;save&amp;quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &amp;quot;paid news&amp;quot;.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan&#039;s election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted to EC.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Another example of the ministry&#039;s approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &amp;quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission&#039;s deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon&#039;ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;
Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
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-Live Mint



Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system


The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do,...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;div align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;-Live Mint&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. 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Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. 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Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
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Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system


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                <strong>Reverse gear on electoral reforms -Jagdeep S Chhokar</strong></h1>
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                <div align="justify">-Live Mint</div><p align="justify"><br /><em>Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system</em></p><p align="justify">The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.</p><p align="justify">An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar's stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.</p><p align="justify">This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&quot;.</p><p align="justify">It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &quot;save&quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &quot;paid news&quot;.</p><p align="justify">The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan's election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted to EC.</p><p align="justify">By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.</p><p align="justify">Another example of the ministry's approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar's predecessors.</p><p align="justify">If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.</p><p align="justify">Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.</p><p align="justify">The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission's deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon'ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&quot;</p><p align="justify">Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.<br />Here's hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.</p><p align="justify"><em>Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.</em></p>               </font>
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    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr67f1e8a8f0b98-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
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-Live Mint
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&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.
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An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.
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This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.
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It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &amp;quot;save&amp;quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &amp;quot;paid news&amp;quot;.
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The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan&#039;s election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted to EC.
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By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Another example of the ministry&#039;s approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.
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If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.
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&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.
&lt;/p&gt;
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The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &amp;quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission&#039;s deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon&#039;ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;
&lt;/p&gt;
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Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;
Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;
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-Live Mint



Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system


The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do,...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;-Live Mint&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &amp;quot;save&amp;quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &amp;quot;paid news&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan&#039;s election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted to EC.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Another example of the ministry&#039;s approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &amp;quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission&#039;s deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon&#039;ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
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	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 21050,
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-Live Mint
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &amp;quot;save&amp;quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &amp;quot;paid news&amp;quot;.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan&#039;s election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted to EC.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Another example of the ministry&#039;s approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &amp;quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission&#039;s deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon&#039;ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;
Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;
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-Live Mint



Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system


The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do,...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;div align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;-Live Mint&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar&#039;s stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &amp;quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&amp;quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &amp;quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &amp;quot;save&amp;quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &amp;quot;paid news&amp;quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan&#039;s election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &amp;quot;account of expenditure&amp;quot; submitted to EC.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Another example of the ministry&#039;s approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar&#039;s predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &amp;quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission&#039;s deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon&#039;ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.&lt;br /&gt;Here&#039;s hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
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Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system


The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do,..."/>
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                <strong>Reverse gear on electoral reforms -Jagdeep S Chhokar</strong></h1>
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                <div align="justify">-Live Mint</div><p align="justify"><br /><em>Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system</em></p><p align="justify">The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.</p><p align="justify">An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar's stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.</p><p align="justify">This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&quot;.</p><p align="justify">It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &quot;save&quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &quot;paid news&quot;.</p><p align="justify">The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan's election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted to EC.</p><p align="justify">By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.</p><p align="justify">Another example of the ministry's approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar's predecessors.</p><p align="justify">If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.</p><p align="justify">Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.</p><p align="justify">The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission's deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon'ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&quot;</p><p align="justify">Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.<br />Here's hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.</p><p align="justify"><em>Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.</em></p>               </font>
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-Live Mint
</div>
<p align="justify">
<br />
<em>Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system</em>
</p>
<p align="justify">
The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.
</p>
<p align="justify">
An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar's stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.
</p>
<p align="justify">
This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&quot;.
</p>
<p align="justify">
It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &quot;save&quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &quot;paid news&quot;.
</p>
<p align="justify">
The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan's election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted to EC.
</p>
<p align="justify">
By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.
</p>
<p align="justify">
Another example of the ministry's approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar's predecessors.
</p>
<p align="justify">
If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.
</p>
<p align="justify">
Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.
</p>
<p align="justify">
The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission's deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon'ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&quot;
</p>
<p align="justify">
Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.<br />
Here's hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.
</p>
<p align="justify">
<em>Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.</em>
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-Live Mint



Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system


The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do,...',
	'disp' => '<div align="justify">-Live Mint</div><p align="justify"><br /><em>Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system</em></p><p align="justify">The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.</p><p align="justify">An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar's stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.</p><p align="justify">This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&quot;.</p><p align="justify">It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &quot;save&quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &quot;paid news&quot;.</p><p align="justify">The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan's election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted to EC.</p><p align="justify">By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.</p><p align="justify">Another example of the ministry's approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar's predecessors.</p><p align="justify">If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.</p><p align="justify">Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.</p><p align="justify">The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission's deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon'ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&quot;</p><p align="justify">Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.<br />Here's hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.</p><p align="justify"><em>Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.</em></p>',
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	'title' => 'Reverse gear on electoral reforms -Jagdeep S Chhokar',
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-Live Mint
</div>
<p align="justify">
<br />
<em>Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system</em>
</p>
<p align="justify">
The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.
</p>
<p align="justify">
An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar's stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.
</p>
<p align="justify">
This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&quot;.
</p>
<p align="justify">
It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &quot;save&quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &quot;paid news&quot;.
</p>
<p align="justify">
The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan's election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted to EC.
</p>
<p align="justify">
By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.
</p>
<p align="justify">
Another example of the ministry's approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar's predecessors.
</p>
<p align="justify">
If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.
</p>
<p align="justify">
Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.
</p>
<p align="justify">
The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission's deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon'ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&quot;
</p>
<p align="justify">
Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.<br />
Here's hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.
</p>
<p align="justify">
<em>Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.</em>
</p>',
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-Live Mint



Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system


The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do,...'
$disp = '<div align="justify">-Live Mint</div><p align="justify"><br /><em>Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system</em></p><p align="justify">The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone.</p><p align="justify">An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar's stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of &quot;the correctness of otherwise of such accounts&quot;. The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others.</p><p align="justify">This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said &quot;if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person&quot;.</p><p align="justify">It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to &quot;save&quot; former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in &quot;paid news&quot;.</p><p align="justify">The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan's election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the &quot;account of expenditure&quot; submitted to EC.</p><p align="justify">By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years.</p><p align="justify">Another example of the ministry's approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar's predecessors.</p><p align="justify">If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken.</p><p align="justify">Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one.</p><p align="justify">The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. &quot;Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission's deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon'ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress.&quot;</p><p align="justify">Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back.<br />Here's hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors.</p><p align="justify"><em>Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.</em></p>'
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Reverse gear on electoral reforms -Jagdeep S Chhokar

-Live Mint Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his stand that all was well with the electoral system and nothing needed to be fixed. If anything, some things needed to be undone. An example of such intended undoing by the ministry under Kumar's stewardship is an affidavit the ministry filed in the Supreme Court on 13 March saying, in effect, that while section 10-A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951, gave the Election Commission of India (EC) powers to accept an "account of expenditure" submitted by a candidate who contested the election to a state assembly or Parliament, it did not confer any powers on EC to conduct a check of "the correctness of otherwise of such accounts". The affidavit was filed in the case of Ashok Shankarrao Chavan vs Madhavrao Kinhalkar and others. This plain reading of an important statute could be excused as an oversight, were it not for the involvement of the law ministry, the final word on the laws of the land as far as the executive is concerned. In fact, there is a Supreme Court judgment on this very issue. In the case of R. Shivarama Gowde vs. P.M. Chandrashekar (All India Reporter 1999 SC. 252), the court specifically rejected this very contention and said "if an account is found to be incorrect or untrue by the Election Commission after enquiry under Rule 89, it could be held that the candidate had failed to lodge his account within the meaning of Section 10(A) and the Election Commission may disqualify the said person". It is hard to believe the ministry was unaware of this judgement. One plausible explanation of this rather bizarre action is that there was a strong urge on the part of the ministry to support, and try to "save" former Maharashtra chief minister, Ashok Chavan, whose 2009 election to the state assembly is under challenge on a charge of indulging in "paid news". The ministry was, and possibly still is, apprehensive that Chavan's election may be set aside by EC since he did not include the amounts he reportedly spent on getting allegedly favourable media reports on himself published, in the "account of expenditure" submitted to EC. By submitting such an affidavit, the ministry has tried to take the law back to the pre-1999 situation, thus undoing a practice followed by EC under the directions of the apex court for 14 years. Another example of the ministry's approach in these matters came on 23 January; the day justice J.S. Verma committee released its report containing a 43-page chapter on electoral reforms. The same day, Kumar said that it had been decided to refer the report to the Law Commission for its views. The minister obviously forgot, or did not know in the first place, that a comprehensive report by the commission titled Reform of the Electoral Laws has been lying in his ministry since May 1999 when it was submitted by justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the then chairman of the commission, to Ram Jethmalani, one of Kumar's predecessors. If the ministry can forget rulings of the Supreme Court, how can the minister be blamed for not knowing that a report by the Law Commission on electoral reforms has been lying in his ministry since 1999 without any action having been taken. Electoral reforms are not the preferred activity of law ministers. M. Veerappa Moily, a former law minister, started a process of regional consultations in collaboration with EC, to be followed by national consultations. The regional consultations were indeed held but not the national one. The then Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, was so frustrated that he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 13 April 2012, before demitting office on 10 June 2012. Some excerpts from the letter, accessed by filing an RTI application, put the matter eloquently. "Hence allow me Sir, to place before you the Commission's deep disappointment over the fact that a necessary legislation in this regard is yet to be materialized despite an assurance given to us by the Hon'ble Minister of Law and Justice... Though certain minor reforms have been adopted by Government and Parliament, the substantial ones have been actually left out allowing the allegations that politicians are not keen about the reforms because of their vested interest. This raises questions about the lack of political will, which causes us deep distress." Then came Salman Khurshid with whom the process seemed to have stopped. Kumar tried to set the clock back. Here's hoping that the fourth law minister of the United Progressive Alliance in as many years does better than his predecessors. Jagdeep S. Chhokar is former professor, dean, and director-in-charge at IIM, Ahmedabad.