NEW DELHI, July 8:The Supreme Court today gave two months more time to the Centre for completing the necessary arrangements for NRI voting rights.
A three-judge bench, comprising Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justices Amitava Roy and Arun Kumar Mishra, granted the Centre two more months for the completion of necessary work in connection with the NRI voting rights, lawyer Harish Beeran, who appeared for the NRI-petitioner Samsher, said. The apex court had earlier in April granted the Centre eight weeks time to work out the modalities and other aspects to allow proxy voting and e-ballots for NRIs during elections.
In its January 12 interim order, the apex court had said e-ballot voting should be allowed at the earliest which could help an estimated 11 million NRIs across the world to vote. In e-voting, blank postal ballot papers are sent via e-mail to the voters living abroad, which NRIs has to fill it and e-mail it to their constituency.
In this e-voting, there is very minimum risk of manipulation, rigging or violation of secrecy in this system, the EC has said. In 2010, the Government allowed the NRIs the voting rights, but the rules required them to be present in their constituency on the day of voting.
A petition challenged this as “inherent inequality”, after which the court asked for a report from the EC. For years, the NRIs were deprived of voting rights if they had been out of the country for more than six months at a stretch. (UNI)
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