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.
“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.
[Source:-Economics Times]
