Judgment on disqualifying panchayat candidates to "disenfanchise" 50% Haryana women, is "anti-UN convention"

By A Representative
The Supreme Court judgment of December 10, which upholds amendment to Haryana's Panchayati Raj law seeking to disqualify those contesting panchayat polls for not possessing minimum educational qualifications, non-payment of electricity bills or dues to cooperative banks, and not having a toilet in their homes is being widely interpreted as anti-women, anti-Dalit, and against international laws, to which India is a signatory.
While the Apex Court has held that these disqualifications “do not violate the right to equality guaranteed by Article 14 of the Constitution” and they are “not unreasonable or arbitrary”, senior activist Venkatesh Nayak of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative believes, “It ignores important international human rights standards that India has accepted and agreed.”
Adds Indira Jaising, senior Supreme Court advocate, the judgment “effectively disenfranchises” 68 per cent of Dalit women, 41 per cent of Dalit men, and over 50 per cent of all women in Haryana from contesting a panchayat election, wondering what would happen to other BJP-ruled states, including Rajasthan, who have made “similar restrictions.”
Especially referring to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 (ICCPR), to which India is a signatory (1979), Nayak says, it “prohibits discrimination between human beings in relation to voting or contesting elections”, adding, it insists for voting rights to all individuals “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."
In an email alert (click HERE), Nayak says, Apex Court judgment has “nothing to show that this important commitment that India has made before the international community was raised by the petitioners”, adding, “It is strange that the Apex Court, which is often sensitive to India's international human rights commitments, did not go the extra mile to check whether their judgment would be tenable in the light of those international commitments.”
Nayak insists that there is a need to bring this judgment, as also the law amending the Haryana Panachayati raj Act, before the notice of the international agencies such as the UN Human Rights Council and the Human Rights Committee, as also the treaty monitoring body for the ICCPR, as “it violates a major human rights commitment it made internationally 36 years ago.”
Pointing towards the fact that the judgment highlights an “irony” Nayak says, “If you are a woman who is only a sixth class pass, you cannot contest elections in Haryana in the non-reserved category but you can successfully contest elections to Parliament from anywhere in India and become the Union Cabinet Minister for Water Resources and work to rejuvenate river Ganges.”
Nayak wonders, “What if some villages do not have any candidate who meets the necessary educational qualification? Will the panchayat remain without an elected body?” He asks, “Can formal education alone be the benchmark for testing the intelligence of people? Can only formally educated people discriminate between good and bad and right and wrong as the judge held?”
Equating "rural indebtedness" with "insolvency", the activist asks, “So many thousands of candidates, many of whom have successfully been elected to Parliament and State Legislatures in Haryana and elsewhere have declared unpaid Bills and loans in their election affidavits, which are publicly available on website of the Election Commission of India. Should they not be prohibited from contesting elections using the Apex Court's reasoning?”
Thus, one Lok Sabha MP from Vijayawada has declared liabilities to the tune of Rs 710 million; three MPs from Punjab, Gujarat and Maharashtra have outstanding dues of more than Rs 400 million each; and 17.5 per cent of MPs (95) in the Lok Sabha have declared dues of more than Rs 10 crore each, Nayak says.
Nayak also wonders how can people be blamed for not having toilets when the Governments have done precious little to curb corruption in the Total Sanitation Campaign which is nowadays subsumed into the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign), commenting, “Thanks to this judgment, the very poor, unlettered, the indebted and the underprivileged are being ‘cleaned out’ of the political scene in Haryana.”

Comments

Covishield controversy: How India ignored a warning voice during the pandemic

Dr Amitav Banerjee, MD * It is a matter of pride for us that a person of Indian origin, presently Director of National Institute of Health, USA, is poised to take over one of the most powerful roles in public health. Professor Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian origin physician and a health economist, from Stanford University, USA, will be assuming the appointment of acting head of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA. Bhattacharya would be leading two apex institutions in the field of public health which not only shape American health policies but act as bellwether globally.

Growth without justice: The politics of wealth and the economics of hunger

By Vikas Meshram* In modern history, few periods have displayed such a grotesque and contradictory picture of wealth as the present. On one side, a handful of individuals accumulate in a single year more wealth than the annual income of entire nations. On the other, nearly every fourth person in the world goes to bed hungry or half-fed.

The 'glass cliff' at Galgotias: How a university’s AI crisis became a gendered blame game

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan* “She was not aware of the technical origins of the product and in her enthusiasm of being on camera, gave factually incorrect information.” These were the words used in the official press release by Galgotias University following the controversy at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi. The statement came across as defensive, petty, and deeply insensitive.

Thali, COVID and academic credibility: All about the 2020 'pseudoscientific' Galgotias paper

By Jag Jivan The first page image of the paper "Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis" published in the Journal of Molecular Pharmaceuticals and Regulatory Affairs , Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2020), has gone viral on social media in the wake of the controversy surrounding a Chinese robot presented by the Galgotias University as its original product at the just-concluded AI summit in Delhi . The resurfacing of the 2020 publication, authored by Dharmendra Kumar , Galgotias University, has reignited debate over academic standards and scientific credibility.

'Serious violation of international law': US pressure on Mexico to stop oil shipments to Cuba

By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

Conversion laws and national identity: A Jesuit response response to the Hindutva narrative

By Rajiv Shah A recent book, " Luminous Footprints: The Christian Impact on India ", authored by two Jesuit scholars, Dr. Lancy Lobo and Dr. Denzil Fernandes , seeks to counter the current dominant narrative on Indian Christians , which equates evangelisation with conversion, and education, health and the social services provided by Christians as meant to lure -- even force -- vulnerable sections into Christianity.

From plagiarism to proxy exams: Galgotias and systemic failure in education

By Sandeep Pandey* Shock is being expressed at Galgotias University being found presenting a Chinese-made robotic dog and a South Korean-made soccer-playing drone as its own creations at the recently held India AI Impact Summit 2026, a global event in New Delhi. Earlier, a UGC-listed journal had published a paper from the university titled “Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis,” which became the subject of widespread ridicule. Following the robotic dog controversy coming to light, the university has withdrawn the paper. These incidents are symptoms of deeper problems afflicting the Indian education system in general. Galgotias merely bit off more than it could chew.

When a lake becomes real estate: The mismanagement of Hyderabad’s waterbodies

By Dr Mansee Bal Bhargava* Misunderstood, misinterpreted and misguided governance and management of urban lakes in India —illustrated here through Hyderabad —demands urgent attention from Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the political establishment, the judiciary, the builder–developer lobby, and most importantly, the citizens of Hyderabad. Fundamental misconceptions about urban lakes have shaped policies and practices that systematically misuse, abuse and ultimately erase them—often in the name of urban development.

When grief becomes grace: Kerala's quiet revolution in organ donation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Kerala is an important model for understanding India's diversity precisely because the religious and cultural plurality it has witnessed over centuries brought together traditions and good practices from across the world. Kerala had India's first communist government, was the first state where a duly elected government was dismissed, and remains the first state to achieve near-total literacy. It is also a land where Christianity and Islam took root before they spread to Europe and other parts of the world. Kerala has deep historic rationalist and secular traditions.

Search This Blog