On what grounds a people's representative can be disqualified under the Representation of People Act, 1951? Also mention the remedies available to such person against his disqualification.(15).

Constitutional frame that the 1951 Act fills

• Article 102 (Parliament) and Article 191 (State legislatures) disqualify a person who holds an office of profit, is of unsound mind, is an undischarged insolvent, is not a citizen, or is disqualified by or under any law made by Parliament.
• The Representation of the People Act, 1951, is that law for most electoral bars; the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection) is a separate constitutional bar under Articles 102(2) and 191(2).
• Election Commission of India, under Article 324 and the 1951 Act, conducts polls and also decides some disqualifications (notably Section 10A). The President or Governor, with the Election Commission’s opinion, decides office-of-profit and allied constitutional questions (Articles 103 and 192).

Grounds under the Representation of the People Act, 1951

• Section 8 disqualifies a person convicted of specified offences (including the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, certain Indian Penal Code offences, and other listed statutes) if the sentence meets the Act’s thresholds; for many serious offences even a sentence of two years or more attracts a six-year bar after release.
• Lily Thomas v. Union of India (2013) struck down Section 8(4), which had allowed a sitting member three months to appeal before the disqualification took effect; conviction now operates at once for sitting and aspiring members alike.
• Section 8A disqualifies a person found guilty of a corrupt practice in an election petition; the President decides the period, on the Election Commission’s opinion.
• Section 9 disqualifies a person dismissed from government service for corruption or disloyalty.
• Section 9A disqualifies a person with a subsisting government contract for goods or works in the course of trade or business.
• Section 10 disqualifies a person who is a managing agent, manager or secretary of a company or corporation in which the government holds a prescribed share.
• Section 10A disqualifies a person who fails to lodge the account of election expenses within time and in the manner required, unless the Election Commission is satisfied that the failure was for good reason.
• Related bars that often travel with the 1951 Act in answers: Section 11A (disqualification for certain corrupt practices and for conviction for promoting enmity), and the constitutional office-of-profit and defection grounds that a representative actually faces in office.

What the Act does not do by itself

• Undertrial detention is not a Section 8 conviction. After the Supreme Court’s 2013 custody-and-vote line, Parliament amended the 1951 Act so that a person in custody is not, for that reason alone, barred from contesting; conviction remains the hard statutory line.
• Party whip and defection are Tenth Schedule questions for the Speaker or Chair, not Section 8 questions, though both empty a seat.

Remedies against disqualification

• Against a criminal conviction: appeal to the Sessions Court, High Court or Supreme Court as the criminal procedure allows; a stay of conviction (not merely of sentence) is what keeps the seat, after Lily Thomas, until the appellate court says otherwise.
• Against an election-petition finding of corrupt practice: appeal to the Supreme Court under Section 116A of the 1951 Act from the High Court’s order on the petition.
• Against an Election Commission order under Section 10A: writ jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226, and further appeal as the Constitution allows.
• Against a Presidential or gubernatorial decision under Articles 103 and 192: the opinion of the Election Commission is the statutory process; courts have reviewed the decision on limited grounds of mala fides, patent error, or violation of natural justice (as in office-of-profit litigation).
• Against a Tenth Schedule ruling: judicial review after Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu (1992), which treated the Speaker’s order as a tribunal order subject to review.
• A disqualified person may also seek a fresh electoral mandate only after the statutory bar expires or is lifted; there is no automatic restoration of the vacated seat.