Supreme Court seeks ECI response on plea to declare election null, void if NOTA gets majority votes

The Supreme Court today issued notice on a plea seeking a direction that an election must be declared as null and void if maximum votes from the constituency are polled for None of The Above (NOTA) and a fresh election should be held for the constituency.

The plea also sought a direction that the same candidates, who lost to NOTA, should be barred from contesting the by-election which was held after the cancellation of the first election where NOTA got majority votes. In addition, there should be proper publicity for NOTA as a fictional candidate. The petitioner further sought directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to frame appropriate rules in this regard.

A bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra agreed to consider the issues raised by petitioner Shiv Khera. The NOTA was introduced in the EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) following a direction issued by the Supreme Court in 2013 in a plea filed by the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). It gives the option to the voter to reject all candidates as unsatisfactory. Nonetheless, according to the existing law, there is no legal consequence if NOTA gets the majority of the votes. In such an eventuality, the next candidate will be declared as the winner.

Appearing for the petitioner, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan mentioned the recent example of the Surat constituency, where the BJP candidate was declared the winner without any election as the nomination of the Congress candidate got rejected and other candidates withdrew their nominations. He added that even if there is only one candidate, there should be an election as the voter should have the option to vote for NOTA. He also submitted that in Surat where nobody else has appeared, they are forced to go with whoever the candidate is.

Remarking that the petitioner was seeking to develop the law further from the judgment laid down by the Supreme Court, CJI Chandrachud agreed to consider the matter. The Chief Justice commented that they have to see what the EC has to say.



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