are key to building accountability and trust which in turn strengthens democracy and constitutionalism. The Petitioner quoted the sentiments of the Supreme Court of India in the case of Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India and Others v Cricket Association of Bengal and Others3 wherein it was observed that: True democracy cannot exist unless all citizens have a right to participate in the affairs of the politics of the country. The right to participate in the affairs of the country is meaningless unless the citizens are well informed on all sides of the issues, in respect of which they are called upon to express their views. One-sided information, disinformation, misinformation and non-information all equally create an uniformed citizenry which makes democracy a farce when medium of information is monopolised either by a partisan central authority or by private individuals or oligarchic organisations. [13] In the Petitioner's view, openness demands that important information such as declared assets and liabilities are not hidden from the voting public who are supposed to know antecedents including assets and liabilities of the candidates contesting in an election for president. [14] At the hearing, the Petitioner in augmenting his skeleton arguments submitted that while the Respondents' argument was that Article 52 (3) required that there should be a laid down procedure in the subsidiary legislation of how the declaration of assets and liabilities should be published, the 1st Respondent published the declaration of assets and liabilities for candidates at constituency, district and ward levels based on Regulation 20 (2) of the Electoral Process (General) Regulations, 2016. He contended that Regulation 20 (2) merely stated that the information contained J7

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