Delhi HC seeks EC's stand on plea seeking model election procedure for political parties

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought the Election Commission of India (ECI)'s response within two weeks on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking direction to formulate the norms of democracy within the political parties.

Dealing with the plea by C. Rajashekaran, a lawyer and one of the founding members of Kamal Haasan's political party Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), the bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Navin Chawla granted two weeks for the election watchdog to respond in the matter which is pending from last year.

During the course of the hearing, Advocate Abhimanyu Tiwari represented the petitioner.

Last year, the court issued a notice in the matter, in which the petitioner asked the EC to formulate and notify a Model Procedure for Elections with respect to the intra-party elections.

"The lack of internal democracy in political parties, as opposed to other private organisations/institutions, has a significant bearing on the nation's governance, as the lack of transparency and internal democracy in political parties are often reflected in similar non-democratic governance models when said political parties come to power," read the plea."

However, various political parties out of the registered ones do not mandatorily conduct intra-party elections, and as such, no steps have been taken by the Election Commission to address the same," it said.

It further stated that the concept of democracy has evolved to include evolved standards of transparency and accountability, which is evidenced by the Right To Information being recognised as a crucial right in electoral democracy. The subsequent passage of the Right to Information Act, and the various judgments of the Supreme Court called for greater accountability and transparency in the electoral system, including election financing, information on political candidates and adherence, etc.