The Supreme Court in the case Aditya Prasanna Bhattacharya v. UoI and Ors, the bench comprising of Chief Justice UU Lalit, Justice Ravindra Bhat and Justice Bela M. Trivedi observed and has issued a notice in a petition challenging Section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which is depriving the prisoners of their right to vote.
In the present case, the plea filled submits that using confinement in a prison as a yardstick to disenfranchise persons has several challenges such as depriving under-trials, whose guilt or innocence has not been conclusively determined, of the prisoners right to vote. As per the plea filled this makes Section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 disproportionate, discriminatory, and unreasonable. It is also added in the plea that due to the excessively broad language used by the provision, even those prisoners detained in civil prison are being deprived of their right to vote. No reasonable classification is there based on the purpose of the imprisonment.
It is further argued in the petition that the impugned provision operates in the nature of a blanket ban, as it lacks any kind of reasonable classification being based on the nature of the crime committed or the duration of the sentence imposed (unlike that of the several other jurisdictions such as United Kingdom, South Africa, Germany, France, Greece, Canada et al). Thus, this lacked the classification is of anathema to the fundamental right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution.
The plea states that the right to vote is a constitutional right under Article 326 of the Constitution and any curtailment of such a right must be based upon permissible restrictions found within the Constitution itself and in the absence of any such restrictions under the Constitution, the curtailment in question is ultra vires the Constitution.
It is further stated in the petition that the confinement in a prison, which being the yardstick used by the impugned provision, is not one of the constitutionally permissible restrictions to the right to vote under Article 326 of the Constitution.
The plea seeks for the impugned provision reading down in order to ensure that it conforms to the Constitution.
Further, the petition added that it is not possible, altogether, the impugned provision must be struck down for suffering from an incurable vice of unconstitutionality.
Accordingly, the bench listed the matter for next hearing on December 9, 2022.
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