The Division Bench of the Delhi Court comprising of Justice DN Patel and Justice Hari Shankar recently confirmed that the prisoners have no right to vote as mentioned in Section 62(5) of the Representation of the People’s Act, 1951. This was held in the case titled – Praveen Chaudhary vs. Election Commission of India.
The petitioner contended that Section 62(5) is violative of the basic structure of the Constitution.
The Petitioner argued that under the provision, there was no valid classification between the persons who are in jail and the persons who are on bail or out of jail.
This type of classification, the Petitioner submitted, was not valid in the eyes of law and was violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
The Election Commission, on the other hand, argued that this issue had already been decided by the Supreme Court in Anukul Chandra Pradhan, Advocate Supreme Court vs. Union of India & Ors (1997).
The Election Commission pointed out that the Supreme Court had noted that Article 14 permitted reasonable classification which had a rational nexus with the object of classification.
In the above-mentioned case decided by the Supreme Court, it had opined the object of free and fair elections and maintenance of law and order were the essence of democracy and upheld the validity of Section 62(5) for making a reasonable classification.
In view of the submissions and the Supreme Court’s decision, the Court reiterated that the right to vote is neither a fundamental right nor a constitutional right. After perusing a series of other case laws on the issue, the Court opined that Section 62(5) was constitutionally valid.
The writ petition was accordingly dismissed.
Advocate Sidhant Kumar represented Election Commission.
The Petitioner appeared in person.