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Supreme Court of India on Monday dismissed a PIL providing directions to the Center and Election Commission of India for taking severe actions against candidates and Political parties engaged in misusing religion to achieve electoral gains and to ensure free and fair election.
The BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay filed the PIL and suggested that candidates seeking votes by using religion as a tool should be disqualified and the political party doing so should be unregistered. He even prayed the ECI to refer the complaints against any of such cases to the investigation agencies and also prayed for direction to the Centre for taking proper steps to restrict the misuse of religion for electoral gains.
The Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms in its report in 1990 had suggested parallel recommendations to refer any matter for investigation to the agency specified by the commission, prosecute any such person who has committed the offence and appoint any special court for the trial of any offence or offences under this Act”.
In various Supreme Court precedents he also stated that the credit for all significant electoral reforms goes to the apex court, which is also termed as Keeper of the Country’s Conscience”, while emphasizing on the court’s intervention to separate religion from politics.
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