Delhi High Court Dismisses Plea Seeking Voting Rights For Prisoners
three regulation scholars – Praveen Chaudhary, Atul Dubey and Prerna Singh – sought vote casting rights for all prisoners
New Delhi:
The Delhi High Court has pushed aside a plea in search of vote casting rights for prisoners, pronouncing the power was once equipped beneath the regulation and it may be taken away via regulation.
A bench of Leader Justice DN Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar mentioned the Perfect Court has held that the correct to solid vote was once neither a elementary proper nor a not unusual regulation proper and was once most effective equipped via a statute.
The bench famous the correct to vote equipped beneath the statute – Illustration of the Other people Act – was once topic to restrictions imposed via the regulation, which doesn’t permit prisoners to solid vote from jails.
The top court docket mentioned in view of the apex court docket rulings and the statutory place, it noticed no explanation why to entertain the plea, and pushed aside it.
The verdict got here on a plea via 3 regulation scholars – Praveen Kumar Chaudhary, Atul Kumar Dubey and Prerna Singh – in search of vote casting rights for all individuals lodged in jails around the nation.
The petition challenged the constitutionality of Phase 62(five) of the RP Act, which deprives prisoners in their proper to vote.
The Election Fee adverse the plea, pronouncing prisoners do not need vote casting rights beneath the Act and it’s been upheld via the Perfect Court. The panel advised the court docket the correct to vote is a statutory proper beneath Phase 62 of the RP Act and “being a statutory proper (it) is topic to restrictions prescribed within the RP Act”.
The panel referred to a 1997 judgment of the Perfect Court, which held that the impact of sub-section (five) of Phase 62 of the Act is that any individual confined in jail whilst serving a sentence or is in lawful confinement in a jail or in a police custody for any explanation why isn’t entitled to vote in an election.
However this restriction does now not follow to an individual subjected to any roughly preventive detention, the highest court docket judgment mentioned.
