Oust pranksters and legalese

In fact, soon after the ninth election in 1987, the returning officer brought serious flaws in the law to the notice of the then Prime Minister. The Prime Minister had then asked for a report so that remedial legislative action could be taken. Although a report was prepared, it was soon lost in the proverbial red tape that marks New Delhi’s North and South Blocks.

The Presidential Election Law has been made to look unnecessarily complicated. It is certainly possible to put it in easily comprehensible legal language without in any way altering the substance of the law or even the basics of procedure. In fact, it is important that people understand the processes of Presidential electoral law.

Election to the highest office of the land must be treated seriously. A great deal of dignity, prestige and decorum must be associated with it. At almost every election, a number of non-serious candidates file their nominations for the President’s office just to gain cheap publicity. The manner they dress and conduct themselves while coming to file their nomination seems to make a mockery of a national event of great historical significance. There have been instances when candidates have trooped in wearing only a loin cloth or a colourful crown. At least one person arrived with a large bell hanging from his neck. All this must be stopped.

These pranksters can get away under the existing rules since they are allowed to file their nominations and are treated as candidates until the day their papers are scrutinised, even though they may not have fulfilled the basic prerequisites like depositing the security amount, and so on. By amending the law, it should be laid down that such nomination papers shall not be entertained by the returning officer as required under Section 58i of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections Act 1952.

The time for scrutinising nomination papers is no occasion for challenging or discussing the vires of election laws and rules. On the day of scrutiny only those nominations should be considered which fulfill at least the obvious conditions and requirements under the law and the rules. These are all easily discernible by the returning officer at the time of receiving the nomination papers and no in-depth scrutiny is really called for to eliminate non-serious candidates. If past experience is any guide, such an amendment alone would reduce the number of nominations delivered and listed for scrutiny to a maximum of three.

Even though besides the returning officer, several assistant returning officers, including one in each State capital, are appointed as far as the nomination papers are concerned, they have to be delivered by the candidates or any of their proposers or seconders to the returning officer in the designated room in Parliament House. The required 10 proposers and 10 seconders can be from any part of the country as long as their names appear in the official list of electors, i.e, they are members of the electoral college supplied by the Election Commission.

The law as it stands contains absolutely no provision for the verification of the signatures of the proposers and seconders. Also, there is no machinery at present by which signatures of all the elected MLAs of the states can be authenticated at New Delhi. The time for scrutiny is also so short that the returning officer cannot be expected to secure proof of authenticity from remote corners of the country. The law places no obligation on the candidate to furnish proof of the genuineness of the signatures. If people raise doubts it is for them to prove that the signatures are not genuine.

A very delicate and piquant situation arose during the Presidential election of 1987, when doubts were expressed about the genuineness of the signatures of the proposers and seconders of one of the candidates. All of them happened to be MLAs from Bihar and there was no way to readily verify their signatures. It was reported that some of the proposers/seconders were flown overnight from Patna in an effort to make them disown their signatures before the returning officer. That this did not work out is another matter. To get over such situations, it would be essential to modify the law to lay down that the signatures of each of the proposers and seconders be authenticated under the hand and seal of the Secretary of the State Legislature to which he or she belongs.

Lastly, the Constitution provides that the election of the President shall be held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote. The purpose of this system is usually to provide representation to minority groups in multi-member constituencies, i.e, where there are more than one seat to be filled up from the same constituency and through the same poll. This, for example, holds good in the election of members to the Rajya Sabha. A perusal of the records of the Constituent Assembly shows that the concerned provision — Article 55 3 — was adopted in haste without much thought or discussion being devoted to it.

Strictly speaking, where only one person is to be elected there seems little relevance to “proportional representation by single transferable vote”. This may be modified to provide for what is called a system of alternative vote. This would be, in fact, more in tune with the actual method of counting of votes laid down in the Presidential Election Rules.

It is not necessary to present a complete list of amendments that seem necessary but these examples should indicate the urgent need for a detailed review of the law.

The writer is a former Secretary-General of the Lok Sabha and was the returning officer for the Presidential election in 1987