By Zafarul-Islam Khan, IOL South Asia Correspondent

NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (IslamOnline) - President APJ Abdul Kalam today signed the controversial electoral reforms ordinance which allows politicians to cover up their criminal past.

Under the Indian constitution, the president had no option but to sign on the dotted line when the central cabinet of ministers returned to him the controversial draft without any changes.

The central cabinet Saturday had refused to make any changes in the Ordinance returned by the President without signature, and decided to send it back "as it is" leaving him with no option but to give his assent.

The cabinet based it decision on the fact that the draft of the legislation was prepared as a result of a "consensus" between all the major political parties which, in fact, do not want any stringent law to regulate their conduct.

The consensus was worked out in a meeting of political parties representatives on August 9. All political parties now indulge in illegal ways and means to win elections and go out of their way to court or hire criminal thugs to win difficult constituencies.

Politics in India is now a sure means to make illegitimate monetary gains. Legislators in power have all the avenues to make money and those in the opposition too have huge funds under their disposal to improve their constituencies. More often than not they misappropriate a sizeable part of these funds.

President Kalam had returned the Ordinance earlier this week seeking "clarifications" on the "absence" of provisions relating to the 1997 Election Commission guidelines on declaration of previous cases of conviction by electoral candidates as well as their own and their families' assets.

The current legislation also drops the proposal to disqualify a candidate if charges were framed against him in two cases of heinous offence.

The President had pointed out specifically that the ordinance is not in sync with the guidelines given in the matter by the Supreme Court of India recently with a view to cleanse Indian public life of crime and corruption.

The Presidential queries had come as a result of public opinion pressure, which took the shape of a memorandum submitted by eminent citizens led by Rajendra Sachar, a retired judge and human rights activist, and Kuldip Nayar, eminent journalist and member of Parliament.

The memorandum demanded that the right to information of the citizens was impinged upon by the proposed legislation. The eminent citizens favoured declaring assets and antecedents before the electoral returning officers who scrutinise nominations and have the authority to reject them.

The main opposition party, the Congress, Saturday night described as "misleading the impression created by the government" that the party endorsed the Cabinet's decision of sending back the ordinance on electoral reforms to the President without making any change.

Congress spokesman Anand Sharma said that the party had made clear unequivocally that it favoured all disclosures in the form of an affidavit at the time of filing nomination. This position was reiterated by the party in a letter to the government as also during the all party meeting on the issue.

The new legislation in its present form will cover up criminal records of politicians, who currently cannot contest elections if they have been formally convicted of criminal offenses.

Under the new law, not all electoral candidates have to present an account of their monetary positions, liabilities and criminal records. Only the winning candidate will have to present these details to the presiding officer of the parliament or the state legislative assemblies and not to the public or the Election Commission.

As a result, voters will not be able to know in advance the antecedents of the candidates they are supposed to vote for.

The new law also ignores the Supreme Court's requirement that candidates should state their educational qualifications in their declarations before an electoral officer at the time of filing their nomination papers.

By enacting this law the political parties have bypassed the order of the Supreme Court, which said all candidates must disclose details of their assets and criminal cases pending against them. At present a significant proportion of Indian legislators both in the central parliament and state assemblies have criminal records and criminal cases pending against them. The percentage of such legislators may be as high as forty percent of the total strength of Parliament and assembly members.

The new law is a clear statement of the executive’s supremacy over the judiciary and the Election Commission. This is clear from the following clause of the new law:

“Notwithstanding anything contained in any judgment, decree or order of any court or any direction, order or any other instruction issued by the Election Commission, no candidate shall be liable to disclose or furnish any such information, in respect of his election, which is not required to be disclosed or furnished under this act or the rules made thereunder.’’

Under the new law, only those candidates can be disqualified against whom there are two separate criminal proceedings concerning "heinous offences" by a court at least six months prior to filing the nomination. Heinous offences include murder, rape, dacoity, drugtrafficking, causing death by terrorist act, kidnapping for ransom, treason, etc.

This controversy at the very onset of the Kalam presidency heralds a tussle between the present government and the newly installed Indian head of State. A controversy had started to build up when the president decided to visit the pogrom-hit Gujarat but it ended without any untoward incident.