Parties vow not binding: Supreme Court
‘Political parties were making false promises and were not implementing them.’
By : j. venkatesan
Update: 2015-09-29 03:28 GMT
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday said unimplemented promises made by political parties in their manifestos during elections will not amount to cheating the voters.
A bench of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice Amitav Roy rejected a public interest litigation filed by advocate Mithilesh Kumar Pandey seeking enforcement of promises in election manifestos.
He said in his PIL that political parties were making false promises and were not implementing them. He said these parties were cheating the public and wanted the court to issue a direction to the Election Commission to enforce them.
He referred a 2013 judgement in which the apex court had asked the the Election Commission to frame guidelines in consultation with recognised political parties with regard to promises made during elections.
On Monday, the bench asked counsel, “which law says that a promise made by a political party is enforceable in law? Only if it is enforceable it becomes cheating.”
Regarding post-poll alliances, the Chief Justice observed, “it is not for this court to say don’t join together after the polls... to prevent elections being again and again, three or four political parties may come together after the polls and form an alliance. Can we say that there should not be any post-poll alliance.”