Voter awareness not EC’s monopoly, says SC; sets aside SEC order

BEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday said Election Commission did not have a monopoly over conducting ‘voter awareness campaigns” while disapproving EC’s refusal to permit a civil society group led by Aruna Roy from running a campaign to educate voters to choose representatives carefully and not barter their votes for bribes.Setting aside Rajasthan State Election Commission’s Oct 9 refusing permission for the civil society in this regard, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana gave 48 hours to the SEC to consider their representation to run voter awareness campaigns for the final phase of Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti elections scheduled for Nov 14.SEC, through advocate Amit Kuri, said permission was refused keeping in mind the imposition of prohibitory orders for maintenance of law and order situation before the elections to keep at bay unwanted and anti-social elements.Roy’s counsel Prashant Bhushan said it is a voter awareness campaign and not political activity and questioned the legitimacy of blanket imposition of prohibitory orders under Section 163 of BNSS to prohibit congregation for any political purpose.

The bench told SEC that EC conducting voter awareness programmes does not mean others are prohibited from doing similar exercises. “In the event they do or indulge in any corrupt practices, you are there to rectify it. But you cannot monopolise voter awareness campaigns. Everyone has a right to do so.”SC turned to Bhushan and said civil society cannot give a general application seeking permission to carry out voter awareness campaigns and said it must specify the place and time for conducting such exercise to the authorities concerned for permission.SC issued notice to Rajasthan SEC, set aside its Oct 9 order refusing permission and directed it “to reconsider the petitioners’ request for permitting them to conduct voter awareness campaign during the phase 3 of the Panchayati raj elections.”While the final phase of voting would end on Nov 14, the election of ‘sarpanchs’ and ‘panchs’ is scheduled for Nov 16. The three-phase elections covered 41 Zila Parishads, 457 Panchayat Samitis and 14,403 Gram Panchayats.