The Supreme Court has clarified that courts must exercise caution in invalidating elections solely on the ground of incomplete asset disclosures by candidates, unless such omissions are substantial enough to influence the outcome of the polls.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh dismissed an appeal against a Telangana High Court ruling of October 2024, which had rejected an election petition arising out of the 2023 legislative assembly polls in the state.
The central allegation in the petition was that the returned candidate, Kova Laxmi, had failed to disclose income shown in income tax returns for four of the last five financial years in her Form 26 election affidavit. The petition argued that this amounted to a “corrupt practice” under election law.
The apex court, however, held otherwise. “The non-disclosure of income in the income tax return for four financial years by respondent 1 is not a defect of substantial character,” the bench observed. It clarified that such an omission did not amount to corrupt practice.
The bench emphasised that courts must assess whether the non-disclosure of assets is of substantial character on a case-to-case basis. “Merely because a returned candidate has not disclosed certain information related to the assets, courts should not rush to invalidate the election by adopting a highly pedantic and fastidious approach, unless it is shown that such concealment or non-disclosure was of such magnitude and substantial nature that it could have influenced the election result,” the order stated.
Referring to past precedents, the Court acknowledged that non-disclosure of assets can, in some cases, amount to corrupt practice. However, it distinguished the present case, noting that the omission here was not consequential to the validity of the election.
The judgment underscored that judicial intervention in election disputes concerning disclosures is driven by the goal of ensuring transparency in the electoral process, particularly to expose candidates’ criminal antecedents.
At the same time, the Court cautioned against stretching disclosure requirements to invalidate elections over minor technical lapses. “The disclosure requirement as far as assets and educational qualification is concerned should not be unreasonably stretched to invalidate an otherwise validly declared election over minor technical non-compliances of non-substantial character and nullify people’s mandate,” the verdict noted.
