Today, a single bench of Justice Krishna S Dixit and Justice Vijaykumar A Patil of Karnataka High Court rejected a PIL seeking to grant voting rights to Non-Resident Indians to cast their vote from the countries they reside in.  

The bench said, “The vehement submission of the learned counsel for the appellant that the right to vote needs to be given to NRI runs counter to this long-standing electoral jurisprudence.”

It added, “In view of the above the matter is thoroughly devoid of merits and it needs to be rejected and accordingly it is rejected.”

In its plea, the petitioner mentioned his organization which was founded during the Covid and the main objective is to ring NRI Kannadigas and other related institutions at a common place to discuss and address the concerns raised. Sagarottara Kannadigaru is registered in the UK under CIC (Community Interest Company) to represent overseas Kannadigas throughout the world.

During the hearing, he also submitted that, around 60 Lac Indians are eligible voters working across the globe in various professions, some with their family and some of them are studying abroad in different universities.

Thus it was prayed for a direction to the respondents Union of India and Election Commission of India to provide voting facility to NRI’s in their respective residing countries in the Elections.

Case Title: Ravi M And Union of India & others