Candidate-

1. To disclose his and spouse’s source of income and assets while filing nomination papers before
Returning Officer (RO) and furnish income tax returns for the previous three years. Failing this, RO
should reject nomination on the ground of nomination papers filed incomplete. Necessary column if
required be added in the nomination papers.
2. To deposit amount within the election expenses limit, prescribed by Election Commission of India
(Commission), he intends to expend on his election. RO could keep the said amount in a separate
account under the head election expenses of candidate(s).
3. To give the details of agencies he plans to avail logistic support from.
4 To furnish bills to RO regarding services/ support availed. RO, on receipt of bills, after required
verification to issue cheque for amount billed, in favour of the concerned agency within a period not
exceeding four days..
5. Candidate to furnish to RO and Expenditure Observer complete detail of expenses incurred by
him, his party and supporters for his election within 24 hours of completion of counting of votes.
6. Declaration of result of counting should be withheld till the completion of following exercise. In
case of expenses exceeding ceiling by a candidate, his candidature needed to be declared null and
void on ground of electoral malpractice. However; in case of violation of the said limit by more than
one candidate, election needed to be countermanded. Commission to take said decisions on receipt
of reports from Chief Electoral Officer, Election Observers after satisfying itself in this regard on the
basis of facts mentioned in the reports. Commission may issue guidelines for furnishing of report in
this regard by concerned within stipulated time. Commission, if feel satisfied may grant an
opportunity to aggrieved party(ies) of hearing in person before conveying its decision.
7.Candidate should not seek support of religious organisations in any way during electioneering
which promote his election prospects.
8.Mandate should be sought by the candidate on the basis of his election agenda or election
manifesto of his party.
9.No convicted leader/worker of a party on bail/parole should be allowed to campaign during
electioneering in favour of his party’s candidate. If such incident noticed, candidate be directed by
election authorities to stop it forthwith. In case of defiance his candidature should be rejected in the
manner suggested under para 6.
10. Political parties should adhere to internal democracy. Pending internal party elections should be
held and completed within three months failing which party should be debarred from contesting next
election / bye election when due.
11. They should furnish their audited financial status and income tax returns to Commission annually
by date due
12. Donations exceeding Rs. ten thousand should not be accepted in cash by a party. And full
particulars should be kept of the donors by the latter.
13. Donation to a party exceeding Rs one lakh by a donor should be made under intimation to the
Commission.
14.Political parties should upload their financial position on their website and update regularly.
15.In case of defiance of above directives by a party, Commission should take appropriate
correctional action on the same which may include levy of fine.
16.Financial status of the parties along with their sources of funding should be brought under the
purview of Right to Information Act.
17.No ex parte stay to be granted by a Court vis a vis above decisions on a petition filed by the
aggrieved party.
Many of these suggestions may seem harsh but then there is no option to cleanse the system which
has been allowed over the years to deteriorate to the extent calling for such stringent measures to
purge. The malaise has become cancerous. And cancer cannot be treated by an analgesic pill.
These are few suggestions to achieve the purported objective. However; Commission, if felt
necessary in its wisdom; might further propose more measures in this regard. But the mission must
be achieved.
Politics is a means to serve the country and people and not to seek one’s own fortune and swell
one’s coffers. Those who join politics with such motive , intent and agenda should be kept straight
way away from political field and ineluctably electoral politics under all the circumstances in the
interest of democracy, country and billions of its people. So raising of cordon sanitaire in the form of
above suggested measures is inevitable to safeguard the same from the infectious plague of
corruption.
Though it is learnt Commission has sent in December 2016 its proposals on the issue to the
Government. However; the outcome thereof is not known. Commission may like to renew its
demand and prepare necessary proposals on the above suggestions for onward projections to the
Government for enacting necessary laws, rules etc. And the Commission needs to convince the
Government to take positive actions on such proposals. In case of want of requisite response by the
Government, the Commission needed to advise the Government that in such a situation, it would
have to conduct election in the future under clouded atmosphere. And this would not portend well for
the future of democracy in the country. As the objective of achieving social and economic
democracy, the goal of realising greatest good of greatest number will remain elusive as an
unfulfilled dream under such a vicious system.
Apart from this, a controversy has erupted regarding the bona fide of electronic voting machines
(EVMs) being used presently for voting. The opposition parties have expressed their apprehension
rather made allegations that all is not well with the (EVMs) regarding their functioning while under
use for voting . The same are prone to hacking to rig the voting result in favour of candidates from
ruling alliance.
According to a news report : A bloc of 13 opposition parties, excluding AAP, met President Pranab
Mukherjee on Wednesday. “The recent cases of alleged tampering and malfunctioning of EVM
machines, particularly in the recently concluded assembly elections, have raised bona fide concerns
on the possibility of manipulating electoral outcomes,” the representation given by opposition parties
to Mukherjee said (News 18.com- April 13 2017).”
The report further mentioned, “Earlier, on Monday, 16 opposition parties urged the Election
Commission to revert to the paper ballot system in future elections saying tampering allegations
have created “trust deficit” on the reliability of the EVMs. AAP participated in this meeting. The
parties also slammed the Centre for failing to provide funds to the Commission to put in place
sufficient number of voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The VVPAT dispenses a slip with the symbol of the party the elector has voted for.”
The Election commission has categorically denied such allegations and has vouched for the
absolute foolproofness of EVMs vis a vis their functioning. Considering the prestige of Commission
there does’t seem a reason to question the credibility of the Commission.
But the opposition parties are far from convinced.
It may be recalled here that similar allegations were made by the present main ruling party while it
was in opposition when United Progressive Alliance(UPA) was in power before 2014 General
Elections to the LOK Sabha- a news item below:
Rediff India Abroad-August 05, 2009
“BJP to show EC how EVMs can be tampered
The BJP and Shiv Sena , which have claimed that EVMs can be tampered with, will make a
presentation before the Election Commission to prove their contention.
“On August 7, a combined delegation of BJP-Shiv Sena would be coming (to give presentation on
how EVMs can be tampered),” Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi told PTI on the sidelines of a
book release function in New Delhi
“On August 8, Omash Saigal would be coming and we are finalising appointments for others also,”
he added.
After former Delhi Chief Secretary Omash Saigal alleged that it was possible to tamper the EVMs,
Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha L KAdvani had demanded that ballot papers should be
reintroduced in the electoral process.”
Irrespective of above controversy, I recall an incident on the issue. During the 2004 general elections
to Lok Sabha I was posted Chief Electoral Officer in my State cadre J&K. After the announcement of
poll schedule, my office got engaged in gearing itself to conduct the elections in the State. And thus
was busy in making all the necessary arrangements for holding the elections. The preparations
being made were on war footing keeping in view the time bound schedule of each stage of elections.
One day while the team of technical staff (deputed by the Commission) was examining along with
my office staff, the workability of EVMs(to be deployed for voting), an official of technical team and
my Election Officer reported that in one of the machines there was a hundred percent polling in
favour of All India Anna Dravid Munnetra Kazhagam(AIADMK) Party. Obviously the EVMs sent by
the Commission were earlier used in Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections. And this only conveyed rather
proved that voting in that machine was rigged. As hundred percent polling at a polling station in
favour of a single party was just not possible. It seemed that the concerned staff omitted to revert the
machine to clear position by deleting the votes recorded in the machine at the time of voting. And
thus the hacking was detected. We all were stunned and the machine was removed from use. I
further instructed the inspecting staff to make it doubly sure that no other EVM was affected from
such error.
Be that it may the controversy must come to an end.
1. April 2011: The First Lawsuit and the Counterclaim

The battle initially started in the December 2010 when Apple began to claim that Samsung
‘smartphones & tablets infringed Apple patents. Apple proposed a licensing

deal in which Samsung would have to pay Apple up to US$ 30 per smartphone & US$ 40 per tablet, but

Samsung clearly declined the proposal. After this unsuccessful licensing deal, Apple filed first lawsuit

claiming that Samsung infringed on its utility patents, design patents and trade dress rights. Samsung
counterclaimed over 3G technology patents and thus expanded the battle internationally by filing such
claims against Apple in Japan, Germany and South Korea

2. August–September 2011: Apple Launches a missile of cases

In addition to filing against Samsung in US, Apple filed numerous similar type of lawsuits in several

countries. With injunction orders as most important weapon in this war, Apple made full use of these
missiles. All kinds of injunctions available in most courts were applied by the company and in some
cases Apple succeeded. For instance , Apple managed to receive an injunction order

from Court of Dusseldorf, Germany, to ban sale of Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the European Union ,

but this order remained valid only for 1 week when the court had to later reverse the order. Therefore,

Samsung began selling Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany and other countries

During same period, the US District Court ,California in San Jose declined a

request from Apple to pull Samsung’s products from shelves. However, the court then ordered
Samsung

to share samples of offending devices including source code with Apple as a part of evidence-gathering

procedure. Similarly , Samsung requested the court to order Apple to disclose the information about the

iPhone5 and iPad3, but the court refused this request.

February 8 2012: The Second Lawsuit and Counterclaim

Apple filed the second lawsuit on 8 February 2012, alleging Samsung of infringing several

patents on various products. Similarly ,Samsung filed its counterclaim against Apple.

March–May 2012: Settlement Talks Began

In Northern District of California in San Jose, both Apple & Samsung l continuously
claimed against each other the violation of court orders and discovery procedures. Judge Lucy Koh

ordered both companies into settlement talks in late May 2012. However, the settlement happened but
the outcome was not achieved.

July 2012: Jury Trial Begins

The jury trial between Apple and Samsung opened on 22 July 2012. The trial contains

testimony by numerous technical & damage evaluation experts, including witnesses who invented

technology at issue in the case. Here ,both parties submitted documents to prove every technical issue
of the argument in their favour . Apple’s lawyer submitted a 85 page list of potential witnesses, but
Judge Koh refused to entertain the list.

August 2012: US$ 1.05 Billion Victory

On 24 August 2012, American jury spent only 21 hours in deliberation and returned a verdict largely

favourable to Apple, awarding US$ 1,049,343,540 damages to Apple and zero damages for Samsung’s

counterclaims. The decision was broadly criticized and raised controversies over the potential
unintended

consequence on consumers and smartphone industry. More concerns were placed on inadequate

qualifications of the jury members for a complex patent case. In this case, both parties had expected

that the jury would take a much longer time to conclude the verdict since they were given more than

700 questions by numerous technical experts, including highly technical documents. Critics claimed

that the nine jurors might not even have had enough time to read the lengthy jury instructions from

Judge Koh (see Vaughan, 2012).

October–December 2012: Apple’s Bad Time

In the US, Apple sought numerous injunctions to fight Samsung in both lawsuits filed in June 2011 and

February 2012. Most orders were gradually refused by courts and United States Patent and Trademark

Office (USPTO). For example, the Court of Appeal lifted an injunction on the US sales of the Samsung

Galaxy Nexus and USPTO rejected all claims of Apple ‘915 pinch-to-zoom patent. Judge Koh also

denied Apple’s request for a permanent injunction against Samsung.

March 2013: Retrial

In the first lawsuit, Judge Koh found that the jury had applied an ‘impermissible legal theory’ to calculate

Apple’s damages. She later ordered a retrial to determine the correct damages and finally invalidated

US$ 450 million awards to Apple (see Niccolai, 2013). New set of jury was appointed and it awarded

Apple US$ 290.5 million in damages, resulting in the reduction of Samsung’s penalty from US$ 1.05

billion to US$ 929 million.

March 2014: Second Lawsuit

While Samsung filed a formal appeal of the US$ 929 million judgment on the validity of key

Apple patent, the second US trial which Apple sought for roughly US$ 2.2 billion damages started its

proceedings on 31 March 2014. The second trial mostly focused on different patents and dissimilar

products than the first trial.

Downloaded from bmc.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on September 19, 2016

Design Patent War 225

South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases, 3, 2 (2014): 221–228

May 2014: US$ 120 Million Victory

On 2 May 2014, American jury decided in the second case that both companies had infringed some of

each other’s patents and ordered them to pay damages. It ruled that Samsung violated two Apple
design

patents, including its popular slide-to-unlock feature on iPhones, and awarded Apple US$ 119,625,000

damages, which was much smaller than US$ 2.2 billion Apple had asked for. On the other side, Apple

was found to violate one Samsung patent and awarded Samsung US$ 158,400 in damages.