{"id":32311,"date":"2023-02-03T01:18:44","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T19:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=32311"},"modified":"2025-04-19T10:26:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T04:56:35","slug":"section-337-of-the-representation-of-people-act-1951","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/section-337-of-the-representation-of-people-act-1951\/","title":{"rendered":"Section 33(7) of the Representation of People Act, 1951"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Section 33(7) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Constitutional Validity of Section 33(7)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Advantages of Section 33(7) of RPA<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Disadvantages of Section 33(7) of RPA<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Supreme Court\u2019s Judgement<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Central Government\u2019s View<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Election Commission\u2019s Suggestion<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Supreme Court rejected a PIL seeking to restrict candidates from contesting elections for the same office simultaneously from more than one constituency.<\/li>\n<li>The Court said that the issue pertain to the legislative domain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Section 33(7) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Constitution allows the Parliament to make provisions in all matters relating to elections to the Parliament and State Legislatures.<\/li>\n<li>In accordance, the Parliament has enacted the following laws \u2013\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li><i><strong>Representation of the People Act 1950<\/strong><\/i>,\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><i><strong>Representation of the People Act 1951<\/strong><\/i> and\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><i><strong>Delimitation Commission Act of 1952<\/strong><\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Representation of the People Act 1951 deals with the qualifications and disqualifications of people\u2019s representatives.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Section 33(7)<\/strong> of the Representation of People Act, 1951 <i><strong><u>allows a person to contest election for the same office from two constituencies at the same time<\/u><\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>On the other hand, Section 70 bars candidates from representing two constituencies in the Lok Sabha\/state.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Prior to 1996, there was no bar on the number of constituencies one can contest from<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The provision was then amended and a limit of two seats was set.<\/li>\n<li><u>When a candidate contests from two seats, he has to vacate one of the two if he wins both. Following this, by-elections are conducted for the vacant seat<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Constitutional Validity of Section 33(7) of RPA<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The constitutional validity of Section 33(7), Representation of People Act, 1951 has been upheld by the Allahabad High Court in <strong>Raja John Bunch v. Union of India (2014)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The court observed that <strong>Article 101<\/strong> of the Constitution <i><strong>does not contain any prohibition or restriction on a person contesting an election or filing a nomination from more than one constituency<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>Article 101 states that \u201cNo person shall be a member of both Houses of Parliament and provision shall be made by Parliament by law for the vacation by a person who is chosen a member of both Houses of his seat in one House or the other\u201d.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The court observed that <u>there is nothing inconsistent between Section 33(7) and Article 101<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Advantages of Section 33(7) of RPA<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>It is intended to strike a reasonable balance for candidates who wanted to contest in two constituencies and the rights of voters.<\/li>\n<li>The latent motive behind contesting from more than one constituency is two-fold.<\/li>\n<li><u>At times, it is because the candidate is not confident about his victory and sometimes, it is done to publicize the extent of one\u2019s influence<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>A seat may fall vacant for a variety of reasons including, amongst them, the disqualifications which are contained in <strong>Article 102<\/strong> of the Constitution.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>When a seat falls vacant, it has to be filled up in accordance with law.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Disadvantages of Section 33(7) of RPA<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Burden on Exchequer \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>This imposes a financial burden on the public exchequer, government manpower and other resources because by-elections have to be held in constituency that has been vacated.<\/li>\n<li>It leads to wastage of time and is against the spirit of the Constitution.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Power being vested upon the people in power \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Effective representation, being essential to a democratic system, the process of popular representation assumes importance.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>This is undermined by the system of multiple elections.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>A democratic government is one in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Here <u>the supreme power is lost from the hands of people, rested in those who are in power<\/u>. The valuable vote is entirely lost.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Brings inequality amongst voters \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The multiple-candidature is also discriminatory in nature as it provides a second chance to the voters of a constituency where the seat is vacated.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Hence bringing in inequality amongst the voters in India.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It is also <strong>against the idea of \u201cfair elections\u201d, as the economically weaker candidates, would not have enough to contest from multiple constituencies<\/strong>, and hence the wealthier candidate gets more chances of winning, resulting in an unfair election.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Vacant constituency goes unrepresented \u2013\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Because the candidate has to resign from one of the two seats and by-elections are to be held within the maximum period of 6 months (S. 151-A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951), the <strong>constituency may go unrepresented for the duration of those six months<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>This surely does not amount to effective representation and makes a mockery of the democratic process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Supreme Court has refused to set aside provision of allowing candidates to contest polls from two constituencies simultaneously.<\/li>\n<li>A petition was filed in the Supreme Court to declare Section 33(7) of the Representation of People Act 1951 invalid and ultra vires.<\/li>\n<li>The petitioner argued \u201c<i><strong>like one-person-one-vote, one-candidate-one-constituency is the dictum of democracy\u2026 Section 33(7) of the RPA allows a person to contest a general election or a group of by-elections or biennial elections from two constituencies<\/strong><\/i>\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Supreme Court\u2019s Judgement<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The court chose to leave the issue to the wisdom of the Parliament.<\/li>\n<li>The court noted \u201cThis is a matter of legislative policy, since ultimately it is Parliament\u2019s will to see if a country can be granted such a choice. Hence, absent any manifest arbitrariness in the said provision, we cannot strike it down\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Central Government\u2019s View<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2018, the central government had objected to the petition in court.<\/li>\n<li>It had argued that <u>law cannot curtail the right of a candidate to contest elections and curtail the polity\u2019s choice of candidates<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>The government had further told the Supreme Court that one-candidate-one-constituency restriction would require a legislative amendment. It had supported Section 33 (7).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Election Commission\u2019s Suggestion<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The Election Commission had suggested to amend section 33(7) to restrict politicians to contest elections only from one seat.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The commission alternatively suggested that in case the provision is not amended, then<i><strong> there should be an explicit provision making it mandatory for a person, contesting and winning from two seats to bear the cost of by-elections which will be held after he vacates his seat<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>Another idea which is perceived as a possible solution is that <u>in case a candidate wins from both the seats, then instead of conducting by-elections, the candidate securing the second-highest vote should be announced as the winner<\/u>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>This will avoid wastage of hard-earned money of the public and reduce pressure on election machinery.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is First Past the Post System?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The first-past-the-post (FPTP) system is also known as the simple majority system. In this voting method, the candidate with the highest number of votes in a constituency is declared the winner. This system is used in India in direct elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What does Losing Deposit in Election mean?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>According to the Representation of People Act, 1951, it is mandatory for every candidate contesting a Parliamentary or Assembly election to deposit a certain security amount. Now, if the candidate gets fewer than one-sixth of the total number of valid votes cast in the constituency, his security deposit will be lost.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/sc-rejects-plea-seeking-to-bar-candidates-from-contesting-elections-from-more-than-one-seat\/article66462561.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>No bar on contesting two seats in one poll<\/u><\/a>\u00a0 <strong>|\u00a0 <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.livelaw.in\/top-stories\/supreme-court-dismisses-challenge-to-rp-act-provision-allowing-candidates-to-contest-from-two-seats-220512\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Livelaw<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Section 33(7) of RPA deals with candidate contesting elections for same office from two different constituencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":32312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}