On 13th February, 2020, the Supreme Court had laid down guidelines for publishing the criminal antecedents of candidates and had mandated that parties are to publish details of the candidates, their pending criminal cases, their merits and the reasons for their selection. The time limit to publish this was minimum of 48 hours and maximum 2 weeks.

A contempt petition was filed by an advocate, Brajesh Mishra, who stated that parties were not complying with the February 2020 judgment.

In the previous hearings, the court had heard the several instances where these guidelines were not followed.

On 10th August, 2021, a Bench consisting of Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice B.R. Gavai, modified the judgement of 2020.

The Bench stated that the political parties, both regional and national parties are to publish the criminal antecedents on their websites, in newspapers and on their official social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

The Bench further stated that the time-limit to upload or publish these details are mandatorily 48 hours.