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Synopsis

Over party symbols on EVMs issue, a Supreme Court bench of CJI U.U. Lalit and Justice Bela. M. Trivedi, on Tuesday allowed to make a representation before the appropriate authority. However, the Court refused to exercise its power under Article 32 of the Constitution.

The matter before the Court was through a Special Leave Petition by Advocate Ashiwini Upadhyay, where directions to the Election Commission of India to use names, age, qualifications and photographs over EVMs were sought for. It was the case of the petitioner, that the usage of symbols of political parties over EVM machines and ballots is an unconstitutional practice, repugnant to Articles 14, 15, 21 of the Constitution. 

Senior Advocates Vikas Singh and Gopal Sankarnarayanan, submitted that with party symbols, individual brilliance and competency gets lost. And instead of symbols, candidate credentials should be highlighted for the person to choose their leader from. And further argued it to be in violation of fundamental rights of the citizens and the person contesting. Brazil was cited as an example, and submitted that  if party symbols are removed, the voters will try to know the candidate they are voting for. 

It was also argued, that the party symbols interfere with the candidate's identity, who could be from any background. It was clarified, that the petition does not seek restrictions on political party symbols per se, but the usage of the same on ballots and EVMs is what is being objected to. Moreover, it was also stated that the elections do not mandate symbols to be used, while citing Supreme Court as an example. "In Supreme Court we don't have any symbols. If we start to have symbols the entire election process would be different", Senior Advocate Vikas Singh added.

However, Attorney General for India, R Venkatramani, questioned the logic of the plea. 

After hearing the submissions, the Court thus opined that , "though the prayers made in the instant writ petition pray for various declarations, but for the present purposes, ends of justice would be met if the representation is made by the petitioner to the appropriate authority (as was submitted). To which Attorney General for India, R Venkatramani has assured that the matter will be represented (before the Election Commission of India)".

“When the framers opted parliamentary system of democracy based on ‘adult franchise’, they had not bargained for the ‘law breakers becoming law makers but ADR reports confirm that the trend for last 25 years has been increasingly towards criminalisation, and now 43% of MPs have criminal cases”, read the plea.

Plea stated that free and fair elections and the right to vote are the two basic dictums of a democracy, and that is exactly where the the practice impinges on. The rationale of functioning of the political parties is ‘Party First, Self Next, People Last’ instead of ‘Nation First, People Next, Party Last’, plea added.

Case Title: Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay vs Union of India and Anr.