Supreme Court seeks Centre, EC's response on PIL for voting rights to undertrial prisoners

The plea filed by Sunita Sharma, a resident of Patiala in Punjab, made the Centre, through the Ministry of Law and Justice and the Election Commission, as respondents.

The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre and the Election Commission to file their response on a PIL seeking recognition of voting rights for nearly 4.5 lakh undertrial prisoners lodged in jails across India.

A bench of Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran considered the submissions of lawyer Prashant Bhushan that the present blanket ban imposed under Section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, violated constitutional guarantees and international democratic norms.

It sought a direction to fill the legal vacuum created by Section 62(5) of the RPA by laying down conditions that restrict disenfranchisement only pursuant to an individualised judicial determination, final conviction for specified offences, or the tenure of sentence, instead of the existing blanket ban that applies indiscriminately to all prisoners.

The plea contended that the existing blanket prohibition under Section 62(5) disenfranchised a vast population that continues to enjoy the presumption of innocence under the law.

In Anukul Kumar Pradhan Vs Union of India (1997), the Supreme Court upheld the validity of Section 62(5), holding that the voting was merely a statutory right. The plea, however, relied upon the Constitution bench judgment in the Anoop Barnwal case, which held that the right to vote is a constitutional right.

The plea also contended, if a convicted individual can contest elections and represent lakhs of voters, why should an ordinary citizen, who has not even been declared guilty, be denied the right to vote and to choose their own representative.