The Hindu : Karnataka News : Law ambiguous on prisoners' right

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 20, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Law ambiguous on prisoners' right

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, APRIL 19. When people who are in jail can contest and win elections why cannot prisoners vote? If Ravikant Patil, George Fernandes, and others can win while in jail, what prevents lakhs of prisoners from across the country from exercising their franchise?

Come Tuesday and more than 10,000 prisoners across the State will not be able to vote.

Although the right to vote is a fundamental right, the prisoners have been denied this facility, as the law is ambiguous on this issue.

Prisoners have not been allowed to vote in the 13 general elections held since Independence.

The Secretary to the Government, Department of Home, A.R. Infant, told The Hindu on Monday that although there was no bar on prisoners voting, the law was not clear on it.

He said it would be physically impossible to escort all prisoners to the polling booth.

The best way to overcome this would be to set up an exclusive booth for prisoners, but this would have to be decided by the Election Commission.

Moreover, the Central Prison in Parapanna Agrahara housed nearly 3,200 prisoners and they came from all parts of the State. Some of the prisoners were from other States.

How could their franchise be determined, he asked.

Several inmates of the prison had contested elections and won.

During the 1999 Assembly elections, Ravikant Patil, who was in jail on charge of kidnapping and raping a minor girl, was elected from Indi constituency in Bijapur district as an independent.

He is on bail and he is again contesting the elections. Even Mr. George Fernandes had contested elections while in prison.

Both Mr. Infant and other police officials feel it is time the law cleared this confusion and allowed prisoners to vote.

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