A. Precedents Cited
The Court noted that the constitutional validity of Section 62(5) RP Act had been upheld by the Supreme Court in
Mahendra Kumar Shastri v. Union of India and another. This precedent supports the proposition that Parliament may
legitimately restrict voting by persons confined in prison/lawful police custody, subject to the statutory exception for preventive detention.
ii. Anukul Chandra Pradhan, Advocate, Supreme Court v. Union of India and others
The Court relied on the later, larger Bench affirmation in
Anukul Chandra Pradhan, Advocate, Supreme Court v. Union of India and others,
reinforcing that disenfranchisement of prisoners under Section 62(5) is constitutionally permissible.
This buttressed the High Court’s reluctance to craft an equitable exception under Article 226 in the teeth of a validated statutory bar.
Citing the Constitution Bench in N.P. Ponnuswami v. Returning Officer, Namakkal Constituency,
the Court reiterated the foundational principle that the right to vote/contest is a creature of statute,
not a common law/civil right. This directly underpinned the Court’s conclusion that voting access in prison cannot be claimed
beyond what Section 62(5) permits.
iv. W.P. (Crl.) MD No.2065 of 2026 (Madurai Bench, order dated 10.4.2026)
The Court treated the Division Bench directions in W.P. (Crl.) MD No.2065 of 2026 as clarifying the operational boundary of the
preventive-detention exception: willingness for voting facilitation was to be ascertained and processed
only for those prisoners who are “in custody purely on the basis of preventive detention”,
and not for those in judicial custody or convicted prisoners.
This was pivotal: it provided an immediately relevant, election-context interpretation that the exception is not meant to extend to
“mixed custody” situations.
B. Legal Reasoning
i. The statutory scheme of Section 62(5) RP Act
Section 62(5) bars voting by any person “confined in a prison” or “in the lawful custody of the police,”
but carves out an exception for a “person subjected to preventive detention under any law for the time being in force.”
The Court accepted that preventive detainees may vote, but emphasized that the exception cannot be expanded to cover those who are,
in substance and in law, also confined due to criminal process (remand/judicial custody) and other pending cases.
ii. “Pure preventive detention” as the triggering condition for the exception
The Court’s core move was to treat the preventive-detention exception as applicable only when the prisoner’s confinement is
exclusively on preventive detention. Here, the record showed:
- The petitioner was a remand prisoner in a substantive criminal case (with listed BNS sections).
- He also faced additional pending cases in other jurisdictions.
On these facts, the Court concluded he could not be permitted to vote, notwithstanding his preventive detention order.
In effect, the petitioner could not rely on the preventive-detention proviso to bypass the principal bar where he was also
otherwise lawfully confined through criminal custody.
iii. Article 226 relief constrained by a validated statutory prohibition
The writ sought a mandamus to “permit” voting via postal ballot. The Court held that such a direction would collide with a statutory bar
that has already been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court. Therefore, Article 226 could not be used to create a
voting mechanism for a person falling within the prohibition.
iv. Electoral-roll continuity does not confer an enforceable right to vote while in custody
The Court echoed Section 62(5)’s second proviso: a person’s name may remain on the electoral roll, yet the
privilege to vote is temporarily disabled while the person is confined/lawfully in police custody.
This distinction supported dismissal even if the petitioner remained an “elector” on paper.