Paid news should attract disqualification, says CEC

Paid news should be made an electoral offence that attracts disqualification so that it acts as a deterrent, chief election commissioner VS Sampath on Sunday suggested and said inadequacies in legal framework were not allowing the poll panel to effectively check this and other malpractices.

He also said that there is a ‘crying need’ for a ‘well defined legislation’ governing expenditure of political parties during elections as its absence was allowing them and their candidates to circumvent the rules.

Sampath, who was speaking at a session organised by the Law Commission, said that when the Election Commission looked into whether it had the powers to deal with paid news it found the ‘answer was negative.’

He said that ‘paid news’ in whatever form or nomenclature is presently not even an electoral offence.

‘If it is an electoral offence, it can eventually lead to the disqualification of the candidate. Whatever the difficulties of implementation, the very fact that if it is listed as electoral offence, it would act as a deterrent against people using it in the elections,’ he said.

The CEC said that a recommendation in this regard has been made to the Law Ministry.