SC notice to Centre, EC on PIL for voting rights for prisoners

The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Centre and the Election Commission on a plea questioning validity of Section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which deprived prisoners of their right to vote.

A bench of Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi issued notice to the Centre and the EC after hearing advocate Zoheb Hossain on behalf of a law student, Aditya Prasanna Bhattacharya.

The plea, filed in 2019, contended that the provision used the yardstick of confinement in a prison to disenfranchise persons.

The plea sought a declaration that Section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 was ultra vires of the Constitution for being violative of the fundamental right to equality under Article 14 and the constitutional right to vote under Article 326 of the Constitution.

It sought direction to the Election Commission to take all necessary steps to give effect to the right to vote for prisoners.

The plea said use of excessively broad language caused the provision to generate several anomalous and shocking consequences.

“In addition to convicts, sentenced to a particular period of imprisonment, even undertrials, whose innocence or guilt has not been conclusively determined, are deprived of their right to vote, as they too are confined in prison, although they have not been sentenced to imprisonment," the plea said.

The petitioner further claimed due to the excessively broad language used by the provision, even those detained in civil prison are deprived of their right to vote. Thus, there is no reasonable classification based on the purpose of the imprisonment, it contended.

“The provision operates in the nature of a blanket ban, as it lacks any kind of reasonable classification based on the nature of the crime committed or the duration of the sentence imposed which is an anathema to the fundamental right to equality under Article 14," the plea said.