Election of candidates can be set aside if they lie about education: SC

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that voters had a fundamental right to know about the educational background of people contesting polls and that election of a candidate could be set aside for making false declaration on educational qualifications in the nomination paper.  The ruling came when a bench of Justice AR Dave and Justice L Nageswara Rao quashed the election of Manipur Congress MLA,

Mairembam Prithviraj, for falsely declaring in his nomination papers that he had an MBA degree. The court held that the right to vote would be meaningless unless citizens were well-informed about the antecedents of candidates, including their educational qualification.

It said all information about a candidate contesting elections must be available in public domain as exposure to public scrutiny was one of the surest means to cleanse the democratic governing system and have competent legislators. "This court held that the voter has a fundamental right to information about the contesting candidates.

The voter has the choice to decide whether he should cast a vote in favour of a person involved in a criminal case. He also has a right to decide whether holding of an educational qualification or holding of property is relevant for electing a person to be his representative," the bench said.

"It is clear from the law laid down by this court that every voter has a fundamental right to know about the educational qualification of a candidate. It is also clear from the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, Rules and form 26 that there is a duty cast on the candidates to give correct information about their educational qualifications," the bench said.

The Congress MLA contended that there was a "clerical error" on the part of his lawyer and agent who had filed the nomination papers in 2012 and pleaded to the court not to quash his election as the defect was not of substantial nature. Prithviraj had mentioned in the nomination papers that he had passed MBA in 2004 from Mysore University. The bench, however, rejected his plea saying the election result was materially affected by the false declaration and it had to be quashed. The court noted that he had made the false declaration in the 2008 assembly election as well.

"The contention of the appellant that the declaration relating to his educational qualification in the affidavit is a clerical error cannot be accepted. It is not an error committed once. Since 2008, he was making the statement that he has an MBA degree. The information provided by him in the affidavit filed in form 26 would amount to a false declaration. The said false declaration cannot be said to be a defect which is not substantial," the court said.

"It is no more res integra (issue not decided by court) that every candidate has to disclose his educational qualification to subserve the right to information of the voter. Having made a false declaration relating to his educational qualification, he cannot be permitted to contend that the declaration is not of a substantial character," the bench added.