BENGALURU: “Regulating election expenditure is the first step towards combating corruption,” the Karnataka high court has observed in a recent verdict, upholding the State Election Commission’s action in disqualifying three members of the Anekal town municipal council for their failure to submit their election expenses.
Dismissing the petitions filed by K Srinivas, S Lalitha and CK Hemalatha, Justice Krishna S Dixit has noted that corruption is an “insidious plague with detrimental effects” on society and has a corrosive effect on the democratic polity. “It is in this light that the obligation to file accounts of electoral expenditure as enacted by law needs to be scrupulously complied with, failing which its very purpose would be defeated. It is also for the preservation of purity and probity of elections and maintenance of ‘public trust’,” the judge has said.
