Supreme Court gives the go-ahead to the Centre to act on the Election Commission’s recommendation to extend voting rights to NRIs through postal ballots

 The Central Government on Monday submitted before the Supreme Court that the Election Commission’s proposal to extend voting rights to NRIs through postal ballots have been accepted by it in letter and spirit. 

ASG P.L.Narasimha representing the Centre, said certain amendments are required to be carried out and the Ministry of Law is working on them, taking into consideration the recommendations of the Election Commission.

In view of the Centre’s submissions, a Bench of the Apex Court comprising of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and A.K. Sikri asked the Centre to inform it about “further steps taken to implement the suggestions.”

 

The Bench posted the matter after eight weeks, asking the Centre to do the needful at the earliest. 

“Since the views and recommendation have been accepted let them go ahead with the follow-up. They will have to carry out the follow-up process at the earliest,” the Court said. 

On November 14 last year, considering a batch of Public Interest Litigations (PILs) the Supreme Court had asked the Centre to make its stand clear on the EC’s proposal for allowing NRIs to cast their votes through proxy voting and e-ballots in polls in India. The court had earlier asked the Election Commission to place before it the report of the committee set up by it to “study various available options for the purpose of NRI voting“. 

A 12-member committee led by Vinod Zutshi, Deputy Election Commissioner, had prepared a report on 'Exploring Feasibility of Alternative Options for Voting by Overseas Electors’ wherein it opined that “the option of voting through proxy appointed by overseas electors…” as well as e-postal ballot, where blank postal ballot is transferred electronically to NRIs and returned by post, can be employed after validation of the process and pilot implementation in one or two constituencies. 

The report submitted by the Election Commission further claimed that the system can be initially tried in “one or two constituencies in elections to the legislative Assemblies and can then be “scaled up to more Assembly elections and finally Parliamentary elections if found feasible, practicable and meeting the objectives of free and fair elections”.

The committee also comprised of officials from the Election Commission, Law Ministry and the Ministry of External Affairs and it had elicited the opinion from people of all sections of society before submitting a report to the Supreme Court last year.

The poll panel had contended that the move to allow NRIs to use proxy voting on the lines of defence personnel and e-ballot facility will require changes in the law and a legislative framework. 

The report is the result of a batch of public interest litigations filed in the Supreme Court against the "inherent inequality" created by Section 20(A) of the Representation of the People (RP) Act which insists on the physical presence of an NRI in his local constituency at the time of voting. 

Although the proxy system was opposed by the major political parties of India, the Election Commission said that the proxy voting facility would be operationally the most simple and viable option. 

The petitioners had also submitted that 114 countries have adopted external voting and among them are 20 Asian countries. They said the external voting could be held by setting up polling booths at the diplomatic mission, or by postal, proxy or electronic voting.

The stand taken by the Central Government to accept the Election Commission’s proposal of allowing NRI’s to cast their votes in elections through postal ballots which has been given the go-ahead by the Apex Court comes as a huge relief to over one crore NRI’s who will soon be permitted to take part in the country’s democratic process, once the Government finalises the steps to make it a reality.