The Gujarat high court has stayed a law that made voting compulsory in local body polls. The law was passed by that state assembly when Narendra Modi was chief minister but never received the assent of then governor Kamala Beniwal.
The Gujarat government had recently issued a notification after governor OP Kohli's approval for the law last year. The notification made voting compulsory for the local body elections slated for later this year. Any voter who does not vote has to pay a fine of Rs.100. Admitting a petition by advocate KR Kosthi, acting chief justice Jayant M Patel observed that the right to abstain from voting was inherent in the right to vote and stayed the law till disposal of the case. Kosthi questioned the provisions that made voting obligatory for citizens and maintained that voting was the right of a citizen but not a duty.
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