Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi on Saturday said there was a need for a comprehensive review of the Representation of the People Act, the law governing elections in the country, in view of issues and challenges thrown up before the Election Commission.
"A comprehensive review of the RP Act is overdue for the past few decades," Zaidi said delivering his inaugural address at the National Interactive Conference on Electoral Laws—Strategic Vision for Future. He said the commission's research wing was also undertaking a comparative study of electoral laws in other democracies.
On electoral reforms, the CEC said that was another important area which needed to be addressed in a very systematic manner. He informed that 47 proposals of electoral reforms sent by the ECI from time to time for law making had also been examined by the Law Commission and that many proposals had been endorsed for legislation.
Listing out some of the reforms, Zaidi said they pertained to decriminalisation of politics, prevention of abuse of money, transparency in funding of political parties, making bribery a cognisable offence, criminalising paid news, empowering the ECI to countermand election in cases of bribery and abuse on the lines of countermanding in the event of booth capturing. He also said those recommendations of the ECI and the Law Commission were being scrutinised by a task force in the Law Ministry and the outcome was eagerly awaited.
Zaidi proposed that in order to deal with new issues during conduct of elections in the absence of provision in relevant laws, the relevant laws should be considered for amendment by the Law Ministry. "We feel that there should be well defined electoral laws rather than using residuary powers under Article 324 frequently," he said and added that the ECI would not hesitate to invoke Article 324 in the interest of purity of election.
Citing as an example the cancellation of elections in two assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu in May 2016 on account of abuse of money, Zaidi said the ECI invoked Article 324 and cancelled the polls. "The EC soon thereafter proposed amendment in the RP Act to have a mirror provision in the law on parallel of countermanding of elections on account of booth capturing. We have requested the Law Ministry to revisit our proposal,” he said.
Zaidi also said that if the law had been amended in time, enabling the EC to countermand elections on account of bribery, it would have served as deterrence in recently held elections.
