Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has said that the promises made in the election manifesto cannot be included in the category of corruption as per the election rules. A bench of Justices Suryakant and KV Vishwanathan gave this verdict while hearing a petition filed by a voter from Chamrajpet Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka. The petition said that in the 2023 assembly elections, the Congress had promised to provide economic benefits to the public directly or indirectly and this is part of corrupt conduct.
During the hearing, the Supreme Court bench said, “The petitioner says that a political party candidate talking about providing large scale economic benefits to the public in his manifesto is a part of corrupt conduct. This is a very long drawn out matter and cannot be accepted. In such cases, we have to discuss in detail. For this reason, the petition is dismissed.”
Shashank had filed a petition
A voter named Shashank Sridhar had filed a petition against Congress MLA Zameer Ahmed Khan. In this he had said that five points of the Congress manifesto are part of corrupt conduct. The court said that under Section 123 of the Representation of People Act, if a party tells what schemes it will run after coming to power and how people will benefit from it, then it is not corrupt conduct. All the five promises of Congress were schemes for social welfare. Whether they benefit economically or not.
Cannot call it corrupt conduct- Court
If other parties prove that implementing these schemes will make the state bankrupt, then it will be considered a failure of the state government. In this case, these can be called wrong schemes, but even in this case, these cannot be termed as corrupt practices.
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