NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the election commission (EC) on a PIL seeking to publicise None of the Above (NOTA), a fictional candidate. The PIL also seeks to disallow candidates who get less than NOTA to contest the bye-elections to the same constituency.
A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud, and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra entertained the PIL by motivational speaker and author Shiv Khera, who seeks to take further the SC judgment of 2013 that introduced NOTA as an option in the EVMs.
The plea also sought to frame rules stating that the candidates who garner fewer votes than NOTA shall stand debarred from contesting all elections for a period of 5 years and to ensure proper and efficient reporting/publicity of NOTA as a ‘fictional candidate.’