• The Supreme Court brought the curtains down on a nearly decade-old batch of petitions seeking directions to the Centre and the Election Commission to allow postal or proxy voting by NRIs and migrant workers, after taking note of the Attorney General's assurance in this regard.

• A bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice Bela M.Trivedi, at the outset of the hearing, made it clear that such matters which had led to the formation of a committee by the Election Commission and subsequent tabling of a Bill to this effect in one of the houses of Parliament cannot be entertained any longer.

• The bench said Attorney General R. Venkataramani has assured that every step will be taken to ensure that the persons living outside and the migrant labourers are part of the electoral process and the voting facility shall be extended by maintaining the confidentiality of elections.

• The bench disposed of the PIL filed in February 2013. The petitions had said that 114 countries, including 20 Asian nations, have adopted external voting, which could be held by setting up polling booths at diplomatic missions or through postal, proxy or electronic voting.

NRI voting rights

• Section 20A of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 provides for registration and enrolment of overseas electors in the electoral rolls. The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 provide that the overseas electors can register themselves in the electoral rolls of their respective constituencies on the basis of self-attested copies of the passport and valid visa, and exercise their franchise in person on production of original passport at the time of voting at the specified polling booths.

• The said rules stipulate the physical presence of the overseas electors in the respective polling station in India on the day of polling. This causes hardship to the overseas electors in exercising their franchise by being present in India on the day of polling. 

• The Election Commission has been receiving several representations from Indian diaspora residing abroad to facilitate voting through postal ballots since such overseas electors are not in a position to be present in their polling area as travelling to India for this purpose is a costly affair and otherwise also, they cannot leave the country of their residence owing to specific compulsions of employment, education or other engagements.

• Only a little over 25,000 of the nearly one lakh overseas Indians who had registered as voters flew down to India to exercise their franchise in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, according to data issued by the Election Commission. 

• Section 62 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 envisages the right to vote for every citizen registered in the electoral roll who is not subject to disqualification for voting. 

• Therefore, it is necessary to explore all avenues to enable exercise of a franchise by all eligible electors.

• As of now, overseas Indians are free to cast their votes in constituencies they are registered in. 

• A Bill to extend the facility of proxy voting to overseas Indians had lapsed following the dissolution of the 16th Lok Sabha in 2019. The Bill had proposed that overseas Indians, who are entitled to vote in India, can appoint a proxy voter to cast the ballot on their behalf.

• An expert committee of the Election Commission, working on the issue, had in 2015 forwarded the legal framework to the law ministry to amend the electoral laws to allow the overseas Indians to use proxy voting.

• The EC has suggested amending the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 to extend Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS) for overseas electors. The rules were amended in October, 2016 to allow service voters to use ETPBS.

Additional reading

Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS)

Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS) is one-way electronic transmission of the postal ballots to service voters. The service voter then casts his/her vote and sends it to the respective Returning Officer via Post.

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