The Madras High Court on Monday withdrew an order passed by its Madurai Bench on January 28 that henceforth no person should be included in the voters’ list if his/her residence was situated on a land that had been classified as a waterbody in the revenue records of the State.
Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad deleted the direction, issued by two other judges, at the request of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Satyabrata Sahoo who said no person could be denied the constitutional right to vote just because he/she had encroached upon a waterbody.
CEO’s counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan brought it to the notice of the court that Article 326 of the Constitution states that elections should be on the basis of adult suffrage and Section 19 of the Representation of the People Act of 1950 also states that any person above 18 years of age was eligible to vote.
When such was the case, it would be difficult for the CEO to comply with the court order, issued on a public interest litigation petition related to encroachment of waterbodies, and refuse to include in the voters’ list all those whose residences were situated on lands classified as waterbodies, he said. The court was also told that in 2004 a case was filed in the Bombay High Court to deny the right to vote to encroachers of public places. However, a Division Bench of that High Court had refused to issue any such direction and an appeal against that judgment was still pending in the Supreme Court.
The direction to deny the right to vote was one of the many directions issued by the Madurai Bench with the others being denial of power supply, water connection and so on to those who were residing on lands classified as waterbodies.
