Features of the Representation of the People Act,1950 and 1951

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Indian electoral system is a cumbersome process, it is left to Chief  Election Commission (C.E.C) and State Election Commissions to perform the task for every 5 years. The entire process of electoral exercise rests on three pillars - Article 326 of the constitution, Representation of the People Act 1950 and Representation of the People Act 1951.

                               Article 326  of the constitution provides that the election to the House of People and Legislative Assembly of States should be conducted on the basis of adult suffrage i.e citizens who are 18 years of age are entitled to vote.

Constitution allows Parliament to make provisions in all matters relating to elections for parliament and state legislatures.

PROVISIONS OF R.P.A 1950 : 
  • It provides for the allocation of seats in the House of the people and in the legislative assemblies and in legislative councils.
  • It provide provisions for delimitation of constituencies.
  • It lays down the qualification of voters.
  • It provide procedure for preparing electoral rolls and manner of filling the seats
These provisions provide for participatory democracy to function through direct elections. These provisions also accommodate the nature of dynamic population by 'delimitation of constituencies'. The federal polity will strengthened by allocation of seats in respective houses.

RPA Act 1950 Parts and Schedules 
  •  Part 1: Preliminary
  •  Part 2: Allocation of Seats and delimitation of constituencies
  •  Part 2A: Officers
  •  Part 2B: Electoral  rolls for parliamentary constituencies 
  •  Part 3: Electoral rolls for assembly constituencies 
  •  Part 4: Electoral rolls for council constituencies 
  •  Part 5: General
  •  The first schedule allocation of seats in the House of the people
  •  The second schedule total number of seats in the legislative assemblies
  •  The third schedule allocaton of seats in the legislative councils
  •  The fourth schedule local authorities for purpose of elections to legislative councils
  •  The fifth schedule (Repealed)
  •  The sixth schedule (Repealed)
  •  The seventh schedule( Repealed)
PROVISIONS OF R.P.A 1951 :                                                       
  • It regulates the conduct of elections.
  • It provides qualification and disqualification of membership of the house.
  • It provide provisions to curb corrupt practices and other offences.
  • It provide procedure for settling disputes and doubts regarding the elections  
The act provisions curtail the politicians from standing election who have have criminal records. In order to conduct Free and Fair elections the provisions prohibit corrupt practices like capturing booth, bribery or promoting enmity etc. The political parties which are registered under section 29A of the RPA 1951, are eligible to receive electoral bonds, thus provide mechanism for transparency in political funding.

  Salient features of the Representation of people's act

According to the act, a person shall not be qualified to be choosen to fill a seat in Loksabha unless: 

  1. He  is member of any scheduled caste of any state and is an elector for any Parliamentary constituency, in the case of a seat reserved of the scheduled castes in any state.
  2. He is a member of any scheduled tribe of any state and is an elector for any Parliamentary constituency, in the case of a seat reserved for the scheduled tribes.
  3. He is an elector for any Parliamentary constituency, in case of any other seat.

According to the act, the qualification of membership to Rajyasabha

A person shall not be qualified to be chosen as a representative of any state or Union territory  in the  Rajyasabha unless he/she is an elector for a Parliamentary constituency.

According to the act, a person can be disqualified on below grounds:

  1. Disqualification on conviction for certain election offences and corrupt practices in the election.
  2. A person convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years.
  3. Disqualification on ground of corrupt practices.
  4. Disqualification for dismissal for corruption or disloyality
  5. Disqualification for office under government company
  6. Disqualification for failure to lodge account of election expenses.
  7. Disqualification for promoting enmity between different groups or for the offence of bribery
The act provide guidelines to the Election commission for free and fair conduct of election. The RPA(Amendement)Act,1966 abolished the election tribunals. It transferred the election petitions to the high courts whose orders can be appealed to supreme court. However, the disputes regrading President and Vice President are directly heard by the supreme court.The Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill, 2017 was introduced in Lok Sabha by the Minister of Law and Justice.  The Bill seeks to amend the Representation of People Act, 1950 and the Representation of People Act, 1951 to allow for proxy voting and to make certain provisions of the Acts gender-neutral.



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