There is an important Supreme Court judgment that the country is discussing when Rahul Gandhi is disqualified for Lok Sabha membership. It was a verdict won by Lilly Thomas, a Malayali lawyer in the Supreme Court who passed away in 2019. The case of Lily Thomas was caused by the observations made by the Supreme Court in the petition challenging the election of P Jayarajan in 2001.
According to Section 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, MPs had a grace period of three months in disqualification proceedings even if they were sentenced to two years or more in a criminal case. This section was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013 in the Lily Thomas case. With this, if he is punished for more than two years, he will be disqualified. Lily Thomas, a native of Kottayam Changanassery, is the first Malayali woman lawyer in the Supreme Court. Lily Thomas first approached the Supreme Court in 2005, pointing out that 24 percent of MPs in 2004 had a criminal background. In 2001, the election of P Jayarajan who was elected from Koothuparam was annulled by the court. However, there was no disqualification for contesting the by-election. Jayarajan contested and won the 2005 by-elections and the 2006 general elections. This was also discussed in the case.
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At that time, it was the practice of the people’s representatives to take advantage of the delay of three months to contest the elections again. Lily Thomas, who was 86 years old at the time, started a legal battle against this. The court accepted the third complaint. According to the Supreme Court verdict in 2013, Rasheed Masood MP was the first MP to lose his seat. The UPA government had tried to bring an ordinance to restore the three-month delay. Although Lily Thomas prepared a review petition against it, it did not have to be filed in court. Because Rahul Gandhi himself publicly tore apart the UPA government’s ordinances as anti-democratic.
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