Right To Reject :Indian Judiciary Guides To executive
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava
29 September, 2013
Countercurrents.org
Why the supreme Court in India had to go to instruct the Election Commission that it should incorporate the Right to Reject in the ballot paper. Its answer is not very far to seek as it is the executive that has failed continuously to respond to the wishes of the people.
When political parties and governance itself emphasize the narrow and vested interests then positive development of all types is hindered in complete manner. It is like gold itself becoming a thief and starts walking out of the box, who can protect the gold then, in similar fashion if governance pays no serious attention to achieve the best , who has the capacity to push it to go for the best.
Supreme Court has demonstrated that it has the capacity to reform the system when the undertakers are themselves have taken it for granted. India is a democratic society, Nehru was a democrat par excellence whose great advice was that we had to nurture it in sustained manner but successive governments failed to listen these dictum of transcendental values.
It must be appreciated that not only the Supreme Court , media too has played a crucial role in reforming the system. Media has highlighted the issue significantly if any particular social welfare decision is made by the apex court.
Executive had to be proactive but it limited itself to narrow boundaries , an usual and persistent disease prevailing in all the developing societies.
Supreme Court in India has brought many significant changes in the socio-politico milieu of the country. Its great decision on the Keshavananda Bharati case where it invented the concept of basic structure, decision on the asset declaration by the candidates on the petition of Common Cause in 2002, implementation of CNG based transportation in Delhi in 2002 and recent one on the tainted politicians and Right to Reject suggest that Judiciary has emerged as the main reformative institution rather than the political executives.
Right to Reject is a mechanism to restrict the bad people to enter the system. In the meantime Government is under pressure to withdraw the ordinance on the allowance of tainted politicians to enter the legislatures. Now this decision of Supreme Court has strengthened the people’s movement against the ordinance.
This may prove an important step in the containment of the proliferation of the criminalization of the politics, Vohra Committee report had discussed issue of criminalization but no serious attention was given to it. Now time seems to have arrived that criminalization of politics be stopped with sustained efforts by all concerned. Right to Reject may emerge an important tool in this respect.
Indian electoral system has constitutional basis. The political parties albeit have synchronized it according to their interests, mainly to gain the majority in the legislature. This leads to decline of the quality of the legislature and often promote the criminalization of the politics. The truth is that electoral system is faced with many challenges. Among which the election of the legislator is key issue. Political parties select those to contest the election who can win, often quality is sacrificed. Voters have limited options as individual voter has to elect the legislator among those which have been made available by the political parties.
A vast section of the citizens moreover is not analytical and carry the knowledge gap, is swayed over the partisan interests. These all factors lower the quality. As a consequence it has almost become difficult to find people like Nehru, Ambedkar, Lohia, Atal Bihari, Madhu Dandwate, Indrajit Gupta, Bhupesh Gupt inside the parliament.
This malaise is widespread. There are many eminent personalities in the country which should have been inside this great debating platform of democracy. T N Sheshan, Sumit Chakravorty, Dr. Anil Kumar Verma, Kiran Bedi, Sunita Narain,C Udai Bhaskar, Narendra Dabholkar [now dead] like people, who are not only expert in their domain of action but are also full of integrity and selfless should have been inside the legislature and frame the policies for the Indian society. There is no dearth of good people in the country, only need is that political parties as a whole should select these as their candidate in the election. Law making is a highly specialized art which requires a vast amount of knowledge, integrity, commitment to the great universal values and interests of the people at large. Hence the best of the country need to be included in this process.
Right to Reject gives a chance to the common citizens that they should exercise their freedom of speech and expression as mentioned in article 19 (1) (a) of Law of the Land. The citizens too need to realize that they have to work hard to improve their decision making power at the time of voting. If citizens are empowered intellectually and incorporate the critical power of the judgment, then the best can be elected. Citizens therefore have major role in deciding the quality of the electoral system thereby the quality of the democracy in the country.
Right to rejection is not a panacea to all the ills prevailing in the system but it has definitely opened an avenue for the reform of the system. Political parties need to know that they must move towards the reform of their electoral strategies otherwise Supreme Court will intervene time and again. In the similar way executive too need to understand that its commitment is towards the betterment of the Indian society in comprehensive manner, all other considerations subordinate to it. It must also learn to be proactive.
There is no doubt that Right to Reject may be an eye opener to all major stakeholders to the Indian democracy. All must keep in mind the words of Chief Justice Sathasivam that democracy is all about choices and 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.
Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava has twenty years University level teaching experience, presently Assistant Professor in CSJM Kanpur University[affiliated college],Vice Chairman CSSP, Kanpur a think tank and educational hub for deprived section of society, have presented papers in Chile, Australia, Finland, South Korea, Sweden etc., regular contributor to Mainstream Weekly, have been published in Dainik Jagran, AJ newspaper.Recent paper ‘Message from a Lady of Exceptional Courage’ on Sushmita Banerjee,(with feminist view) Mainstream Weekly,21st September available at www.mainstreamweekly.net, Email: [email protected]
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