The candidates have to disclose their personal details of criminal, education and property while filing their nominations.

1. Criminal antecedents: To curb criminalization of politics, the Supreme Court of India in 2002, gave directions to Election Commission to implement and Parliament also amended the Representation of People’s Act of 1951 in December 2002.

Through this Act, submission of details regarding criminal antecedents are made compulsory for all the candidates along with their nomination papers. The details of cases pending against them in the courts and whether they were convicted or acquitted.

The recent decisions of the Supreme Court made it clear that the candidates having criminal records are debarred from contesting elections and members of legislature would lose their membership. In this regard, the Election Commission has framed rules to restrict the candidates from contesting elections. 

Disqualification for criminal offences is provided, in RP Act of 1951.

a. As per the Act, a person is disqualified from contesting elections only on conviction by a court of law. 

b. Cases filed six months before election would lead to disqualification.

c. Cases in which candidates have been accused with the offence and sentenced for 2 or more years are disqualified to contest the elections.

d. With the offence proved by a court of law, a person is not eligible to contest elections for a period of 6 years. The availability of detailed information about the candidates through, media, enables the public to select and elect the candidates having clean records with, service motto.

2. Educational Antecedents: The candidate has to file an affidavit to give information relating to his educational qualifications. Being representative of the people, one has to be educated and able to take part actively in the proceedings of the Legislature, administration and in law-making processes. Though the constitution has not mentioned any minimum educational qualifications for the candidates, this disclosure enables the voters to elect qualified persons.

3. Property Antecedents : Contesting an election is an expensive affair and persons with good education but dearth of funds may hesitate to contest whereas people with money power get elected and may amass more wealth. This leads to corruption. To curb this, the Election Commission has made it mandatory to declare the details of movable and immovable properties of the candidates and their families. This disclosure helps the voter to assess the honesty or otherwise of the candidates.