Discuss the 'corrupt practices' for the purpose of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Analyze whether the increase in the assets of the legislators and/or their associates, disproportionate to their known sources of income, would constitute 'undue influence' and consequently a corrupt practice.

Corrupt practices under the 1951 Act

Section 123 names, among others, bribery, undue influence, appeals to religion, race, caste, community or language (read with later amendments and Abhiram Singh v. C.D. Commachen), publication of false statements, hiring of vehicles, booth capturing, and the use of official machinery in specified ways. Section 123(1) bribery is a gift or promise to an elector or to a candidate to induce a vote, withdrawal or candidature. The Supreme Court in S. Subramaniam Balaji v. Tamil Nadu treated many manifesto freebies as policy, not as Section 123 bribery, while later benches have kept the unease alive. Lily Thomas and Section 8 deal with conviction and disqualification, which is a different track from a corrupt-practice petition under Sections 100 and 123.

• Election petitions are strict: pleadings, particulars, and proof. A newspaper story about wealth is not enough.

Undue influence

Section 123(2) is direct or indirect interference with the free exercise of an electoral right, including threats of injury and the use of spiritual or temporal authority to overawe. Ram Dial, Shiv Kirpal Singh, and later Krishnamoorthy v. Sivakumar show that the vice is constraint on the voter or candidate, not every unfair advantage. Manoj Narula v. Union of India spoke of constitutional morality in appointments, not of assets as undue influence.

Disproportionate assets

A rise in assets of a legislator or of a spouse, firm or “associate”, unexplained by known sources of income, is classically a Prevention of Corruption Act question (and, for sitting members, a matter for investigation, the ethics committee, and voters at the next poll). Association for Democratic Reforms and the PUCL line of cases made affidavit disclosure of assets a condition of a free and informed vote. False disclosure can amount to a corrupt practice as a false statement or can found other proceedings. The jump in wealth, standing alone, is not undue influence. It does not, without more, interfere with anyone’s electoral right.

It can become a 1951 Act case if the wealth is the means of bribery (cash for votes, paid crowds) or if office is used to intimidate. Those are separate heads and need facts. Treating every enrichment as undue influence would collapse the PCA, benami law and the RPA into one elastic phrase, which the statute does not do.

The practical constitutional response is honest affidavits, a working Lokpal / state vigilance process, inner-party tickets that are not sold, and the Court’s asset-disclosure jurisprudence — not a new fiction that money in the house is, by itself, a poll offence.