Crimes and cases

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ADR’s painstaking reports of the ECI affidavits makes for interesting analysis. As of today, 693 candidates out of the 5,380 analysed have cases filed filed against them. As has been pointed out in the press earlier, over 760 of the ~3,000 criminal cases (over 25%) have been filed against two remarkable individuals from the Aam Aadmi Party.

Slightly ahead on list is Dr. Udayakumar, contesting at Kanniyakumar, TN. He has a Ph.D from the University of Hawaii in political science, and assets worth ~Rs 5 crores, mostly in agricultural land, but that’s a lot less interesting than the 380 cases booked against him across 52 IPC sections. That’s a pretty active lifestyle, in some sense. If one case were filed against him for every single day of the year, the police would be busy filing cases for more than an entire year.

In one case, he was one among 28 named accused and 2,475 unnamed accused – which makes one wonder how the police knew that there were 2,475 other people if they were unnamed. Equally interesting are cases with 130 and 80 unnamed others. In some sense, this is not surprising – his stated profession is Social Activist.

However, none of these cases have resulted in a conviction with a sentence of 1 year or more, and only in two cases were charges framed – both under the Religious Institution (Prevention of Misuse) act.

Right behind him is Pushparayan, contesting at Thiruvallur, TN, with 380 criminal cases. He is a businessman with net asssets of Rs 87 lakhs. The cases against him are equally interesting, spread across 47 IPC sections, ranging from 37 charges of mischief causing damage to the amount of Rs 50, to 16 charges of sedition (subversive speeches).

Despite the large number of cases filed against these candidates, the AAP has a relatively lower percentage of candidates with criminal cases against them.

Each box below represents a party. The size is based on the number of candidates with criminal records. The independents have 209 candidates out of 2,252 so far with criminal records. However, this is only 9% of the candidates. This is indicated by the colour – green indicates a lower percentage, and red indicates a higher percentage. 88 of the 279 BJP candidates and 76 of the 289 Congress candidates have criminal records against them, as against the 44 out of 291 AAP candidates.

It’s also notable that the percentage of criminal cases increases as wealth level increases. Almost out of every two candidates with over Rs 100 crores of wealth (that’s 27 candidates) has criminal cases against them.

The bulk of the cases booked (nearly two-thirds) are from 3 chapters in the IPC: Bodily Harm, Disturbing Peace and Property Crime.

Some of the rarer sections are more interesting to analyse. For example:

• Pradeep Kumar Joshi of Rashtra Sewa Dal contesting at Karakat, Bihar, was accused under IPC 313: Causing miscarriage without woman’s consent.
• Pankaj Kumar Singh of CPI(ML)L contesting at Purnia, Bihar was accused under IPC 373: Buying minor for purposes of prostitution, etc.
• Ashok Kumar of Rajnaitik Vikalp Party contesting at Nawada, Bihar and Raghunathdada Patil of AAP contesting at Hatkanangle, MH, both have FIRs related to IPC 371: Habitual dealing in slave. (Wasn’t that abolished?)
• Mohite Patil Vihaysinh Shankarrao (remember what we said about the length of names?) of NCP contesting at Madha, MH, has an FIR under IPC 428: Killing or maiming animal of the value of Rs 10. (The FIR process, I suspect, cost more than the Rs 10.)
• Najmudheen CT of CPI contesting at Lakshadweep is the only person charged with making the atmosphere noxious to health. (How? The Textbook on the Indian Penal Code offers some possibilities, including sound pollution and smoking.)

Finally, there are a few candidates the details of whose cases we are quite curious about. These happen to be the sole cases registered against these candidates:

• Matchindra Hanumantrao Chate of BSP contesting at Mumbai North East has only ever been charged under IPC 294: Obscene acts and songs. Which song, we wonder… but he is not alone. 44 other candidates have been similarly charged, led by Narendra Mohanty of AAP, with 6 such registered cases.
• Mohd. Firoz Aftab, an independent candidate contesting at Saharanpur, UP was charged under IPC 426: Punished for mischief. What mischief was he up to?

The links above have the candidates’ phone number and email. If any of you happen to reach out to them, we would love to learn a bit more about these cases.