Powered by

Allahabad HC flags concern over spike in criminal cases against lawmakers

Court trashes BSP MP Atul Rai's bail plea

allahabad high court pti (File) Allahabad High Court | PTI

While gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed is to be imprisoned for life, the Allahabad High Court on Monday rejected the bail plea of another criminal lawmaker, noting that every time he got out he committed yet another crime. 

The bail plea of Atul Rai, a BSP MP from Ghosi, was rejected in a case filed under the U.P. Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 1989. 

The court noted that Rai had to his credit 24 criminal cases, which include cases of kidnapping, murder, rape and other heinous offences. 

The high court’s order—a copy of which was made available today—underlines the growing trend of criminals occupying the status of law makers in Parliament and the “disturbing phenomenon in the electoral politics and grave danger to the democracy”. 

The order quotes the observations of a Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court (Public Interest Foundation & Ors vs Union of India & Others, 2019) about candidates with criminal backgrounds getting tickets and also getting elected in large numbers. 

“The Supreme Court has said that this leads to a very undesirous and embarrassing situation of law breakers becoming law makers and moving around police protection,” reads the order. 

It also notes that “Parliament has not moved in the said direction (of electoral reforms) to protect the Indian democracy going in the hands of criminals, thugs and law breakers. If the politicians are law breakers, citizens cannot expect accountable and transparent governance and the society governed by the rule of law be an utopian idea. 

“After independence, with every election, the role of identities such as caste, community, ethnicity, gender, religion etc, has been becoming more and more prominent in giving tickets to winnable candidates. These identities coupled with money and muscle power has made entry of criminals in politics easy and every political party without exception… uses these criminals to win elections. Giving tickets to candidates with serious criminal charges would break the confidence and trust of the civil society, law abiding citizens of this country in the electoral politics and elections”.

Commenting on Rai, the order reads, “...it cannot be said that the accused-applicant is not a gangster considering the law as laid down by this court. This court wonders that if the present accused-applicant who has long list of cases of heinous offences to his credit is not a gangster, then who else can be said to be a gangster”.

The judge thus concluded that “I find that every time when the accused-applicant has been enlarged on bail, he has committed one heinous offence after the another…This bail application is thus, rejected”.

📣 The Week is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@TheWeekmagazine) and stay updated with the latest headlines