HC TO PRONOUNCE ORDER ON MALIK, DESHMUKH’S PLEAS SEEKING NOD TO VOTE IN MLC POLLS
MUMBAI: The Bombay high court will pronounce on Friday its order on two petitions filed by Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik and former state home minister Anil Deshmukh, both jailed NCP legislators, seeking permission to cast their votes in the MLC elections scheduled on June 20. Justice N J Jamadar on Thursday heard extensive arguments by all sides and reserved the verdict for Friday.
During the day’s hearing, senior counsel Amit Desai, who appeared for Malik, said the minister’s case was a simple request for going under escort, while being in the court’s custody, to cast his vote. Desai said though section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act imposed a prohibition or an embargo on those in prison from voting, such prohibition was on account of “physical difficulties” such as arranging for security and creating requisite infrastructure for prison inmates to vote.
“He (Malik) is currently in a hospital and not confined inside a prison. He is also yet to be convicted, so he is not disqualified from casting his vote,” Desai said. He also argued that the court had the discretion to grant requisite permission.
“Can there be a case that an under trial, who has the presumption of innocence, the case against whom hasn’t even been opened in the court, is deprived of his right to vote in a democracy? Or, that he is excluded from a democratic process?” Desai said. Senior counsel Vikram Chaudhri, who appeared for Deshmukh, said though section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act imposed restrictions and “fettered the right of a prisoner to cast his vote,” the court had “unfettered powers” to exercise its discretion.