NEW DELHI, Nov 11: Judging by the draft notice circulated by the Law Ministry to the Group of Ministers (GOM), the government's attempts at making "far-reaching" electoral reforms in the forthcoming session of Parliament may end in a whimper.

The note, circulated last fortnight to the GOM headed by Home Minister Indrajit Gupta, indicates that the Ministry has left it to the Cabinet to take key decisions on conduct of polls and enhanced powers to the Election Commission. The note ends with a list of about a dozen items which have been left undecided largely due to what it calls the ``paucity of time.''

According to a Cabinet Minister who has examined the draft, the Law Ministry appears to have skirted key issues like keeping criminals out of the electoral fray, while incorporating proposals on peripheral issues like the computation of election expenses and rules on election symbols. A majority of the recommendations discussed were made in the Dinesh Goswami Committee on electoral reforms.

Most importantly, the Law Ministry has hardly incorporated any of the radical proposals for which the Election Commission has been campaigning and for which Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill has written a string of letters to Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral.

For instance, the Law Ministry has chosen to go against the proposal to ``empower'' the Election Commission with additional powers such as giving it the right to independently investigate cases of misconduct during elections and to try them in special courts. Rejecting the proposal, the draft states: ``It may not be advisable to give such sweeping and wide-ranging powers to the Election Commission.''

The note has been discussed once by the GOM and is likely to be discussed one more time before being put up to the Cabinet for approval. The draft states that in view of the ensuing Parliament session, the Ministers may now directly send their comments and reactions for compilation to the Cabinet Secretariat.

The draft has also proposed that in keeping with the Goswami Committee recommendations, the posts of the CEC and EC should be made ineligible for further employment in the Government.

On the crucial and long-awaited changes in the 1951 Representation of Peoples Act (RPA), the draft notes that since an amendment was incorporated to send an appeal of disqualification on grounds of a candidate being convicted by a criminal court to the President, there has been an ``inordinate delay'' in the clearance of petitions. The Ministry has, thus, recommended that a pre-1975 status be adhered to, whereby a candidate contesting elections will be disqualified for contesting elections for a period of six years.

There is no mention of the disqualification clause being expanded to include candidates who have a criminal background or whose name figures in any criminal case, for which the Election Commission has been campaigning. On the subject of election expenses, the Law Ministry has proposed that the relevant section of the RPA be amended so that the computation of candidates' expenses be done from the date of notification to that of declaration of results. However, the draft says, expenses incurred by a party in the campaign should not be computed with the personal expenses of a candidate.

Giving the background to the proposals, the Ministry has admitted that a consensus had eluded it despite four all-party meetings being held to thrash out such poll reforms. Thereafter, the Ministry had called for comments from various parties but only five parties, including the Congress (I) and the Left parties, submitted their proposals.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.