Report No. 255
18.10. NOTA and the Right to Reject
The Law Commission currently rejects the extension of the NOTA principle to introduce a right to reject the candidate and invalidate the election in cases where a majority of the votes have been polled in favour of the NOTA option.
This is premised on the fact that, first, the underlying premise of the Supreme Court's decision in NOTA was the importance of safeguarding the right to secrecy, and this secrecy rationale does not pre-empt the right to reject. Second, good governance, the motivating factor behind the right to reject, can be successfully achieved by bringing about changes in political horizontal accountability, inner party democracy, and decriminalisation. However, the issue might be reconsidered again in the future.
[Para 11.15]
18.11. The Right to Recall
The Law Commission is not in favour of introducing the right to recall in any form because it can lead to an excess of democracy, undermines the independence of the elected candidates, ignores minority interests, increases instability and chaos, increases chances of misuse and abuse, is difficult and expensive to implement in practice, especially given that India follows the first past the post system.
[Para 12.20]
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