Supreme Court Serves Notice To ECI On Plea Seeking Fresh Polls If NOTA Gets Majority

Supreme Court Serves Notice To ECI On Plea Seeking Fresh Polls If NOTA Gets Majority

The Supreme Court on Friday served notice to the Election Commission (EC) on a plea regarding the use of the NOTA option in the election. The plea seeks the election be declared null and void if NOTA surpasses all the candidates in number of votes, ANI reported. The petition demands a fresh election in such cases.

Besides, the plea sought to frame rules stating that a person must be barred from contesting elections for five years if he garners votes less than that of NOTA, adding that NOTA should be publicized as a fictional candidate.

The plea in this regard was filed by one Shiv Khera. An example of the Surat election was cited to back the petition.

This came hours after the Supreme Court junked several pleas seeking 100 per cent verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips. The two judges authored separate, yet concurring, judgments on the matter. “We have rejected the prayer for paper ballot voting, complete EVM-VVPAT verification and physical deposit of VVPAT slips,” the Court said while pronouncing the order, as quoted by Bar And Bench.

“While balanced perspective is important but blindly doubting a system can breed skepticism and thus meaningful criticism is needed. Be it judiciary, legislature etc. democracy is all about maintaining harmony and trust among all the pillars. By nurturing a culture of trust and collaboration, we can strengthen the voice of our democracy,” the Court said.

After a two-day hearing, the bench had on April 18 reserved its verdict on the pleas. However, the matter was listed again on Wednesday as the court wanted some clarifications from the EC.

Lok Sabha Election:

The second phase voting on 88 of 543 Lok Sabha seats is underway across the country. Earlier the voting was slated for 89 seats but only 88 seats will go to polls owing to the death of BSP candidate in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul. Polling in this seat will take place on May 7 in the third phase. As per the Election Commission, over 1,198 candidates are in the fray for the second phase. There are 1,097 male and 100 female candidates. One candidate belongs to the third gender.

The Lok Sabah polls will conclude in seven phases. Over 10.5 lakh polling stations have been established nationwide, and 1.5 crore polling officials, including security personnel, have been entrusted with supervising the voting procedure. The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) said that over 96.8 crore voters will be eligible to exercise their franchise in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.