Syllabus: Salient features of the Representation of People’s Act.
RO’s Extraordinary Powers
- Representation of the People Act, 1951 (Sections 33-36) and Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 govern nomination process.
- Section 36: authorizes RO to scrutinize nominations and reject those deemed invalid with extraordinary wide power.
- Section 36(2): power to conduct “summary inquiry” and reject nominations for “defects of substantial character” largely un-reviewable.
- No written guidelines on what is substantial thus it becomes tool of political exclusion.
- Article 329(b): bars courts from interfering mid-election; only remedy is election petition after polls when damage irreversible.
Recent Examples
- Bihar: RJD candidate’s nomination rejected for leaving fields blank showing procedural rigidity without substance verification.
- Surat (last year): Opposition candidates eliminated after proposers denied signatures delivering Lok Sabha seat unopposed suspiciously.
- Varanasi (2019): decorated BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav rejected for not obtaining EC certificate overnight.
Procedural Complexity
- Section 36: mandates only qualified candidates can contest; verification process accumulated complexity over years significantly.
- Judicial interventions paradoxically worsened problem; Supreme Court directions mandating detailed affidavits added opportunities for technical rejection.
- Resurgence India vs EC (2013): SC held false declarations lead to prosecution but don’t invalidate nominations; incomplete ones do.
- System punishes incomplete declarations more harshly than dishonest ones creating perverse incentive against transparency.
Common Procedural Traps
- Oath Trap
- Candidate must take oath before specified authority after filing but before scrutiny creating narrow time window.
- If too early, invalid; if too late, nomination rejected; not before specified authority also results in rejection.
- Notarization Trap
- Every Form 26 affidavit must be notarized by specified authority; not having done so results in rejection.
- Certificate Trap
- Candidate liable to submit: no-dues certificates from municipal bodies, electricity boards, government departments; clearance certificates from EC.
- Each issuing office becomes potential chokepoint where deliberate delay can eliminate candidacy through bureaucratic manipulation.
- Constitutional Backwards
- Burden of proof lies entirely on citizen seeking to exercise legal right, not on official denying it constitutionally backwards.
- Right to be voted for is necessary twin of right to vote; without candidates, ballot is ritual without substance.
- First principle: every qualified citizen has presumptive right to contest; denied only with clear evidence of disqualification.
International Comparisons
- UK: ROs help candidates fix errors before deadlines acting as facilitators not sentinels comprehensively.
- Canada: mandates 48-hour correction period
- Germany: requires written notice, time to remedy, multiple appeal layers.
- Australia: encourages early submission to allow corrections.
Proposed Reforms
- RO Role Shift
- RO’s role must shift from discretion to duty; when deficiency exists, issue detailed written notice specifying exact error.
- Candidates must get guaranteed 48-hour window to fix after receiving notice ensuring fair opportunity comprehensively.
- Three-Category Classification
- (1) Technical/paperwork defects: missing signatures, blank columns, clerical errors, no-dues certificates cannot justify rejection ensuring fairness.
- (2) Verification matters: disputed signatures, challenged documents require investigations before rejection ensuring authenticity and truth.
- (3) Constitutional/statutory bars: should lead to immediate and absolute disqualification as legally mandated comprehensively.
- Reasoned Rejection Orders
- Every rejection order must be reasoned: RO must specify exact requirement not met, provision of law violated.
- Must state evidence supporting finding, why defect substantial enough to justify rejection ensuring transparency and accountability.
- Digital Solution
- ECI can build digital-by-default nomination system not depending on excessive paperwork eliminating technical disqualifications effectively.
- Integrated online portal linked with electoral roll; system automatically validates voter ID, age, constituency details.
- Oath, affidavit submission, proposer verification, deposit payment all digital streamlining process and reducing manual errors.
- Every nomination’s progress visible on public dashboard with timestamps and reasons ensuring transparency and public accountability.
- Democratic Imperative
- When nomination rejected arbitrarily: two rights violated – candidate’s right to contest and voters’ right to choose comprehensively.
- World’s largest democracy deserves nomination process that is modern, fair, inclusive with burden of proof on state.
- ECI should work towards citizen-friendly process ending bureaucratic red tape around disqualifications for technical errors ensuring participation.