New Delhi: If you don’t vote, then you have “no right” to question or blame the government, the Supreme Court has observed.
The candid admission of an activist seeking a blanket order to remove encroachments in the country and saying he has never cast his vote, did not go down well with the apex court, leading it to make the observation.
Observing that the court cannot pass a sweeping order on encroachments in a matter involving all states, the bench headed by Chief Justice J.S. Khehar said, “One can’t blame the government for everything. If a person does not cast his vote, then he has no right to question the government.”
The bench, which also comprised Justices N.V. Ramana and D.Y. Chandrachud, said it was not possible for it to look into encroachments sitting in Delhi, and asked the petitioner to approach different high courts wherever he saw such encroachments on roads or pavements.
The hard-hitting observation came when Dhanesh Ieshdhan, appearing in person for Delhi-based NGO “Voice of India”, said the governments do not do anything to remove encroachments and kept on insisting for a blanket order to remove them from across the country.
Ieshdhan’s admission that he had never voted in his life irked the bench, which then made the observation.
