MUMBAI: Bombay high court on Tuesday directed a Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar resident who filed a public interest litigation (PIL) for judicial intervention to ensure that the ‘none of the above’ (NOTA) option available to voters is enforced properly in the wake of unopposed elections, to prepare short notes and written submissions. The HC directed him to file the notes by the next hearing on Jan 27.Petitioner Suhas Wankhede’s plea is that the State Election Commission (SEC), by declaring uncontested winners without an actual election, is in effect taking away voters’ right to choose NOTA.The PIL expressed distress at the system, which it said is “willing to stoop to a walkover approach” to declare winners sans voting. Such a system would enable staged withdrawals, and the SEC “cannot proceed mechanically to make an uncontested declaration that irreversibly extinguishes voter choice and dissent.”The PIL seeks the inclusion of the NOTA option across local body elections even if there is 1 unopposed real candidate.NOTA is to be considered a ‘fictional electoral candidate’, the SEC said in 2018 for urban civic elections. Wankhede said he even wrote to the SEC following its publication of the election schedule for 246 municipal councils and 42 nagar panchayats, which went to polls on Dec 2.The issue of NOTA being denied as an option to voters when an election is uncontested is pending before the Supreme Court in a PIL filed by NGO Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. The PIL before the top court challenged the direct election of Lok Sabha poll candidates in an uncontested election. The SC, in an Aug 2025 hearing in the pending PIL, asked the Election Commission of India whether voters can be denied the NOTA option in uncontested elections.The PIL said the SEC has a constitutional responsibility to ensure local body polls too are fair and transparent, and not to deny voters NOTA option, since if votes for NOTA outnumber the candidate, there would need to be a re-poll.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/bombay-hc-to-hear-plea-for-enforcing-nota-in-unopposed-election-in-local-body-polls/articleshow/126405785.cms