National

Court admits plea on casting `negative vote'

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 11. The Supreme Court today admitted a petition seeking a right for the voter to cast a "negative vote" in an election by pressing the "none of the candidates" option in the electronic voting machine.

A Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, R.C. Lahoti, and Justice G.P. Mathur, admitted the petition from the People's Union for Civil Liberties seeking such a right and posted the case for final hearing after the summer vacation.

Counsel for the Election Commission, S. Murlidhar, produced documents to show how this negative option was prevalent in other countries and in what manner the system was working there.

The Attorney General, Milon Banerjee, said he would produce some more materials on this issue. Senior counsel for the PUCL, Rajinder Sachar, wanted the matter to be heard expeditiously.

The Bench posted the case for hearing after summer vacation.

The PUCL petition said that at present, the voter who wanted to exercise the right not to vote had to tell the returning officer, who would register his name and address in an election book, thus violating the code of secret ballot. It wanted the Commission to make a specific provision in the EVM to enable the voter to cast the `none of the above' option.

In its response, the Election Commission said that it had written to the Centre in 2001 and again in 2004 suggesting amendments to the Representation of the People Act so that a provision could be made in the ballot papers and the EVMs allowing casting of negative vote.

The Commission said that providing such an option would send clear signals to the political parties and their candidates what "the electorate thinks about them."

Further, it said, "such a provision, apart from serving the primary purpose of providing an opportunity to a dissatisfied elector to express his dissent against the contesting candidates will have the incidental benefit of reducing bogus voting."

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