Citizens have right to cast negative vote: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court held that citizens have the right to reject all candidates contesting an election on 27th September. The Supreme Court also directed the Election Commission of India to provide none of the above options at the end of the list of candidates contesting an election in a constituency. A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam while pronouncing the judgment viewed that negative voting would foster purity and vibrancy of elections .It also ensure wide participation as people who are not satisfied with the candidates in the fray would also turn up to express their opinion rejecting contestants.
While pronouncing the judgment he also talked about democracy. Democracy is all about choices. So, voters will be empowered by this right of negative voting. Negative voting will send a clear signal to political parties and candidates as to what the voters think about them. The bench noted that the concept of negative voting is prevalent in 13 countries. Even in India parliamentarians are given an option to press the button for abstaining while voting takes place in the Parliament. The bench also observed that right to reject candidates in elections is part of fundamental right given by the Constitution in Article 19 (freedom of speech and expression). The court passed this order on a Public Interest Litigation(PIL) filed by an NGO, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), which had submitted that voters be given the right to negative voting.