The Supreme Court announced on Friday that the case has been assigned to a three-judge bench due to the complexity of the freebies issue. The apex court in its observatioin said,”That there can be no denying that in an electoral democracy, the true power lies with the electorate and the electorate judges the parties and candidates.”
It was argued before a bench led by Chief Justice N V Ramana that the 2013 ruling made by a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court in the case of S Subramaniam Balaji vs. The Government of Tamil Nadu and others ought to be reconsidered.
“Looking into the complexities of the issues involved and the prayer to overrule the judgement rendered by a two-judge bench of this court in Subramaniam Balaji, we direct listing of the set of petitions before a three-judge bench after obtaining the orders from the Chief Justice of India,” the bench said.
These pleas would be listed after four weeks, the top court announced.
The supreme court remarked in its 2013 ruling that it had reached the decision that the election manifesto’s pledges could not be interpreted as constituting a corrupt practise under section 123 of the Representation of People Act after carefully examining and evaluating its aspects.
