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PIL on electoral reforms dismissed

Legal Correspondent

Petitioner wanted EC to enable voters to reject candidates

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has dismissed at the admission stage a public interest litigation (PIL) petition for a direction to the Election Commission to allow a voter to reject the candidates contesting an election if none of them is found suitable to be elected.

A Bench consisting of Justices B. N. Agrawal and P. P. Naolekar declined to entertain the petition observing that the petitioner could wait till the Government took a decision on the electoral reforms suggested by the Election Commission. The petitioner, Ashok Agarwal, wanted a direction to the Election Commission to include a specific column in the ballot paper to enable a voter to reject the candidates. He pointed out that though the Commission had made such a recommendation to the Government in October 2001, nothing had been done so far to implement it.

He said that such an option should be available to a voter as it would lead to some sort of self-introspection among the candidates. Mr. Agarwal said that in the absence of such a provision , candidates had started treating victory and defeat rather casually.

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