NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Monday indicated it was not averse to examine “whether right to vote is a fundamental right, but refused to entertain a PIL to make voting a fundamental right on the ground that no live incident of infringement to vote has been brought to its notice.
Appearing before a CJI-led 3-judge bench, advocate-petitioner Devadipta Das said in major democracies, right to vote is protected by a special law but there is a vacuum in India. The SC said “right to elect, fundamental though to democracy, is neither a fundamental right nor a common law right, but a statutory right.”
Prior to Kuldip Nayyar judgment, the SC in 1982 in Jyoti Basu case had ruled, “A right to elect, fundamental though it is to democracy, is, anomalously enough, neither a fundamental right nor a common law right. It is pure and simple, a statutory right. So is the right to be elected.”
Source Agencies
