Legislative Reforms in India: Addressing Criminalization and Accountability

Democracy in India rests on one fragile promise: that those who make our laws are fit to make them. Yet decade after decade, that promise has been strained by rising criminalization, opaque political funding, weak intra-party democracy, and a Parliament that increasingly passes laws without scrutiny. Legislative reform is no longer an academic debate – it is the only way to reclaim the representative character of our democracy. This post walks through the most pressing reform areas and the concrete fixes that policymakers, committees, and courts have proposed over the years.

Why legislative reforms cannot wait 🔗

The numbers tell a sobering story. According to the Association for Democratic Reforms, 46 per cent of MPs elected to the 18th Lok Sabha in 2024 have pending criminal cases, and 31 per cent face serious charges including murder, attempt to murder, and crimes against women. The trend is not an aberration; it is a steady escalation from roughly 30 per cent in 2009 to 43 per cent in 2019 and now 46 per cent in 2024.

The problem runs even deeper at the state level. A 2025 ADR analysis of 4,092 MLAs across 28 states and 3 Union Territories found that 1,861 MLAs (about 45 per cent) have declared criminal cases, with 1,205 of them facing serious charges. When lawmakers themselves face allegations of grave offences, the legitimacy of every law they pass comes under a cloud.

Criminalization of politics: the rot at the root 🔗

Criminalization of politics refers to the entry of individuals with criminal backgrounds into electoral office, and the subsequent nexus between politicians, criminals, and bureaucrats. The Vohra Committee Report of 1993 was the first official acknowledgement of this nexus in the Indian administrative and political system.

Why parties keep fielding tainted candidates 🔗

The answer is brutally simple: winnability. Parties calculate that candidates with money and muscle power are more likely to win, and voters – sometimes for reasons of caste, fear, or short-term benefits – often reinforce that calculation. ADR data shows that 39 per cent of BJP’s 240 winning candidates and 49 per cent of Congress’s winners in 2024 had criminal charges, with even higher figures for several regional parties. No major party is an exception, which points to a structural problem, not a partisan one.

Judicial interventions so far 🔗

The judiciary has done much of the heavy lifting. In ADR v. Union of India (2002), the Supreme Court mandated that every candidate disclose criminal, financial, and educational antecedents. In Lily Thomas v. Union of India (2013), the Court held that convicted MPs and MLAs stand disqualified immediately, without the earlier three-month appeal cushion. In Public Interest Foundation v. Union of India (2018), political parties were directed to publish the criminal records of their candidates and reasons for selection in both print and electronic media.

Yet courts have stopped short of disqualifying candidates merely at the stage of framing of charges. The Law Commission’s 244th Report (2014) had recommended disqualification of persons against whom charges have been framed at least one year before scrutiny of nominations for offences punishable with five years or more – a recommendation that still awaits legislative action.

The reforms that must follow 🔗

A serious decriminalization agenda needs at least three legislative steps: amending Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 to disqualify those charged with serious offences, creating permanent fast-track courts to conclude trials of sitting legislators within a fixed time, and imposing stiffer penalties for false affidavits. The Election Commission has also supported a lifetime ban on convicted individuals from contesting elections, replacing the existing six-year bar.

Cleaning up political finance 🔗

Money is the oxygen of criminalization. So long as elections remain prohibitively expensive, only the wealthy, the corporate-backed, or the criminal can contest seriously. Several committees have recommended state funding of elections precisely to break this link.

What successive committees recommended 🔗

The Indrajit Gupta Committee (1998) endorsed state funding in principle, arguing that it is justified on constitutional, legal, and public-interest grounds to help parties with modest resources compete with better-funded ones. The Committee recommended two safeguards: funding should go only to recognised national and state parties with an allotted symbol (not independents), and in the short term it should be given in kind – such as fuel, vehicles, electoral rolls, and media time – rather than cash.

The 1999 Law Commission Report concurred, adding a crucial condition: state funding is desirable only if parties are barred from accepting funds from other sources. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission’s 2008 report “Ethics in Governance” also backed partial state funding to reduce “illegitimate and excessive funding” of election costs.

Audit, disclosure, and accountability of party funds 🔗

State funding alone will not work without robust regulation of party finances. Political parties currently enjoy considerable opacity – they are not under the RTI Act, their audits are often perfunctory, and donations below a certain threshold need not be disclosed. Reform must require:

Proper maintenance and independent audit of party accounts by auditors empanelled by the Election Commission, mandatory disclosure of all donations above a low threshold with donor identity, and penalties including de-registration for parties that fail to comply. The Law Commission’s 255th Report suggested inserting a new Chapter IVC in the Representation of the People Act to deal explicitly with the regulation of political parties, covering internal democracy, party constitutions, internal elections, candidate selection, and empowering the ECI to de-register parties in cases of non-compliance.

Intra-party democracy: the missing foundation 🔗

Parties are the gatekeepers of our democracy. If they are autocratic internally, democracy at the national level becomes a hollow shell. India has no binding law that forces parties to conduct genuine internal elections or transparent candidate selection.

The cost of weak internal democracy shows up most visibly in dynastic politics. Research cited by policy analysts points to roughly 1,174 dynasts from 989 families among 5,294 current legislators across Parliament and state legislatures, a pattern present in every major party. When a handful of leaders or families decide tickets, honest and competent aspirants are crowded out, and candidates are picked for loyalty or winnability rather than merit.

What reform should look like 🔗

The Law Commission’s 255th Report is unambiguous: recognition and electoral benefits for political parties should be conditional on adherence to internal democracy and financial transparency. This means periodic internal elections for party posts, transparent candidate selection procedures, and clear rules within party constitutions that are actually enforceable by the Election Commission. Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 requires parties to file their constitutions with the ECI, but there is no binding legal mechanism to ensure these constitutions are followed in practice – a gap Parliament must close.

Proportional representation and the coalition question 🔗

India uses the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) system, where a candidate with the largest share of votes – often far less than a majority – wins the seat. The result is a frequent and large mismatch between vote share and seat share.

Supporters of proportional representation (PR) argue that it would produce legislatures that more accurately mirror the electorate. A Rajya Sabha parliamentary standing committee on Personnel, Public Grievances and Law and Justice has taken up electoral reforms, including the PR vs FPTP debate, and circulated a questionnaire on the subject to all parties represented in Parliament. In that discussion, several members argued that FPTP can produce majoritarian outcomes and that PR could ensure due representation to every section of citizenry.

The trade-offs to weigh 🔗

PR is not a silver bullet. It can fragment legislatures, complicate coalition formation, and weaken the direct link between a constituency and its representative. A pure switch is unlikely; the more workable path is a hybrid – a Mixed Member Proportional system, on the German model – where most seats are won through FPTP and a portion is allocated via PR to correct distortions in representation. Coalition governments, far from being a problem, can force consensus-building and prevent majoritarian excess – but they work best when the legislative framework ensures stability through properly designed anti-defection rules.

Strengthening Parliament as an institution 🔗

Laws are only as good as the process that produces them. In recent years, parliamentary scrutiny has visibly weakened, and this is perhaps the most under-discussed legislative reform agenda.

The decline of committee scrutiny 🔗

Parliamentary committees, once described as “little legislatures,” allow detailed, bipartisan scrutiny of bills. The decline in their use is stark. Data compiled by policy researchers shows that in the 17th Lok Sabha, only around 16 per cent of bills were referred to committees, compared with 60 per cent in the 14th Lok Sabha and 71 per cent in the 15th. Landmark legislation – including the 2020 farm laws, the abrogation of Article 370, and the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Bill, 2023 – was passed without committee examination.

Sitting days and productivity 🔗

Parliament is also sitting for fewer days than ever. The 17th Lok Sabha is on track to be one of the shortest full-term Lok Sabhas since 1952. Fewer sittings mean less debate, fewer questions answered, and less time for opposition scrutiny. Rising use of the ordinance route also dilutes Parliament’s primary function as a deliberative body.

A reform agenda for the legislature 🔗

A credible reform package would include a constitutionally guaranteed minimum number of sitting days – several proposals suggest at least 120 days a year for the Lok Sabha and 100 for the Rajya Sabha. It would also include mandatory referral of all bills above a certain threshold of significance to the relevant Department-related Standing Committee, extending committee tenures from one year to at least two so that members can build genuine subject-matter expertise, and giving committees independent research support so they are not wholly dependent on ministry briefings.

Ethical reforms matter too. A strengthened Committee on Ethics with real enforcement powers, a binding code of conduct for legislators, transparent rules on disruptions and suspensions, and protection for private members’ business would together professionalize the legislature and restore public trust.

Tying it together 🔗

None of these reforms – decriminalization, state funding, party regulation, proportional representation, or parliamentary strengthening – works in isolation. Fast-track courts without intra-party democracy still leave tainted candidates on ballots. State funding without mandatory audits simply adds public money to an opaque system. Proportional representation without strong anti-defection rules produces instability. The architecture of legislative reform has to be designed as one integrated package, implemented through amendments to the Representation of the People Act, the Tenth Schedule, and the Rules of Procedure of both Houses, with the Election Commission given sharper regulatory teeth.

The obstacle has never been ideas. Every major recommendation has been laid out by the Goswami, Vohra, Indrajit Gupta, Tarkunde, NCRWC, 2nd ARC, and Law Commission reports over the last three decades. The obstacle is political will – and that only changes when voters demand it.

What do you think? Should political parties be brought under the RTI Act so that citizens can scrutinize their funds and decision-making? And if India were to adopt even a partial shift to proportional representation, would it make our legislature more genuinely representative – or simply less stable?

References

1. https://adrindia.org/content/electoral-reforms-idea-whose-time-has-come-indian-politics
2. https://www.insightsonindia.com/2025/03/18/adr-report-on-criminalization-of-politics/
3. https://visionias.in/current-affairs/monthly-magazine/2025-10-04/polity-and-governance/criminalisation-of-politics
4. https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/criminalisation-of-politics-6
5. https://adrindia.org/index.php/content/criminalization-of-politics-in-india-undermining-spirit-of-democracy
6. https://prsindia.org/theprsblog/state-funding-of-elections?page=249&per-page=1
7. https://www.clearias.com/state-funding-of-elections/
8. https://www.pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=116934
9. https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/internal-party-democracy-in-india
10. https://www.orfonline.org/research/the-shift-to-proportional-representation-is-it-time-for-india
11. https://www.pmfias.com/parliamentary-committee-system/
12. https://pwonlyias.com/upsc-notes/parliamentary-productivity-india/