The Supreme Court today has disposed of a petition seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to frame a comprehensive policy to curb excessive election expenditure, while permitting the petitioner to place his suggestions before the Commission for consideration. The Bench clarified that the proceedings were not adversarial and encouraged constructive engagement, observing:

“Treat it as a suggestion. Don’t take it as an adversarial litigation.”

The Bench of Chief Justice of India Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice N.V. Anjaria took note of the ECI’s submission detailing an existing, robust framework for monitoring election expenditure, including deployment of expenditure observers, surveillance teams, flying squads, media monitoring committees and complaint monitoring mechanisms.

While declining to express any opinion on reports allegedly highlighting large-scale election spending, the Bench recorded that the petitioner’s inputs were worth examining, noting that “all such suggestions are worth consideration of the various committees constituted by the Election Commission for the purpose of preventing malpractices during the election process.”

Granting liberty to the petitioner to forward his suggestions, the Court directed the ECI to circulate them among its committees, adding that “if any of the suggestions are found worthy of acceptance, they may be included in the Standard Operating Procedures.”