Supreme Court seeks Centre, EC views on plea for nullifying election if NOTA gets maximum votes
The Supreme Court on Monday sought responses from the Centre and the Election Commission on a plea searching for to direct the ballot panel to nullify an election end result and conducting a contemporary ballot if the maximum votes are for NOTA in a specific constituency. A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian issued notices to the Ministry of Law and Justice and the Election Commission of India whereas searching for their replies on the plea. Senior advocate Maneka Guruswamy appeared for the petitioner.
The prime courtroom was listening to a plea filed by advocate and BJP chief Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay which additionally sought a course to the Election Commission to limit these candidates and political events, whose election has been nullified, from participating within the contemporary polls.
“The right to reject and elect a new candidate will give power to the people to express their discontent. If voters are dissatisfied with the background or performance of contesting candidate, they will opt for NOTA (none of the above) to reject such candidate and elect a new candidate,” the petition stated.
“The Court may declare that if ‘none of the above’ (NOTA) gets maximum votes, then election to that constituency shall be nullified and a fresh election shall be held within six months; and the contesting candidates rejected in the nullified elections, shall not be allowed to participate in the fresh election,” the plea filed by advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey stated.
The petition contended that political events select contesting candidates in a really undemocratic method with out consulting electors, that’s the reason, many occasions folks within the constituency are completely discontented with candidates offered earlier than them.
“This problem can be solved by holding a fresh election if maximum votes are polled in favour of NOTA. In such situation, the contesting candidates should be considered as rejected and not be allowed in the fresh election,” the plea stated.
“Right to reject and elect new candidate will give power to the people to express their discontent. If voters are dissatisfied with the background of contesting candidate, they will opt NOTA to reject such candidate and elect a new candidate,” the plea stated.
The plea stated the proportion of candidates with legal antecedents and their probabilities of profitable has really elevated steadily through the years.
“The injury caused to public is extremely large and continue till date, as the right to reject is an integral part of Article 19, but the Centre and ECI did nothing to declare the election result invalid and hold fresh election if maximum votes are polled in favour of NOTA,” it added.
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