Electoral Reforms: NOTA, Electoral Bonds, and What Actually Changed

Electoral reform in India runs through two very different channels, ordinary constitutional amendment on one hand, judicial intervention on the other, and this chapter's real exam value sits in knowing which channel actually produced a given change. This site's own Election Laws note already covers the Representation of the People Acts' disqualification and corrupt-practices machinery; this chapter covers the reform history and the two most consequential, judicially-driven changes of the last fifteen years.

Lowering the voting age: an amendment, not a court order

The 61st Amendment Act, 1988 reduced the voting age for Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections from 21 to 18 years, amending Article 326 directly. This is worth holding apart from everything below it in this chapter precisely because it is the one major reform that came through the ordinary constitutional-amendment route Parliament always had available, rather than through a court filling a legislative gap.

NOTA: a 2013 judgment, not a Rule or an Act

Before 2013, a voter who wished to reject every candidate had only one formal route: Rule 49-O of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, which let a voter's decision not to vote be recorded, but only by approaching a polling officer in person, an option that destroyed the very secrecy the rest of the ballot process protects. In People's Union for Civil Liberties v Union of India (2013), decided on 27 September 2013, the Supreme Court held that the freedom to express, including the freedom to express no preference at all, is part of the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a), and that Rule 49-O's public, non-secret mechanism defeated that freedom. The Court directed the Election Commission to introduce a "None of the Above" (NOTA) option directly on the EVM and ballot paper, preserving the same secrecy an ordinary vote enjoys. The precise point worth holding: NOTA exists today because of this judicial direction, not because Parliament amended the Representation of the People Act or the Conduct of Election Rules to create it; the Commission implemented what the Court ordered.

Electoral Bonds: introduced in 2018, struck down in 2024

The Electoral Bond Scheme, notified by the Ministry of Finance on 2 January 2018, let a donor purchase interest-free bonds from specified State Bank of India branches and hand them to a registered political party, which could then encash them, with the donor's identity kept confidential even from the party receiving the funds beyond the transaction itself. This was meant to replace anonymous cash donations with a more traceable instrument, while still keeping the donor's identity out of public view.

In Association for Democratic Reforms v Union of India (2024), decided on 15 February 2024 by a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, the Supreme Court held the Electoral Bond Scheme unconstitutional, on the ground that it violated a voter's right to information under Article 19(1)(a): the Court reasoned that knowing who funds a political party is essential information for a voter to exercise their own freedom to vote meaningfully, and anonymity for the donor defeated that right rather than merely limiting it. The Court directed the State Bank of India to immediately stop issuing further bonds, to disclose to the Election Commission every bond purchased since 12 April 2019 along with the purchaser's identity, and directed the Election Commission to publish that data on its own website. This reverses NOTA's own direction of travel in one specific sense worth noting: NOTA judicially created a new mechanism the Rules had not provided; the Electoral Bonds judgment judicially struck down a mechanism a 2018 notification had created, on the same constitutional provision, Article 19(1)(a), read for a different underlying right in each case, the freedom to express no preference in one, the voter's right to know who funds a party in the other.

Quick revision points

• 61st Amendment Act, 1988: voting age reduced from 21 to 18 (Article 326), an ordinary constitutional amendment.
• PUCL v Union of India (2013): struck down the practical effect of Rule 49-O's non-secret rejection mechanism, and directed the Election Commission to introduce NOTA on EVMs and ballots, grounding the right to express no preference in Article 19(1)(a). NOTA exists by judicial direction, not by an Act or amendment.
• Electoral Bond Scheme: notified 2 January 2018, let a donor buy bonds via SBI and give them to a party with the donor's identity kept confidential.
• Association for Democratic Reforms v Union of India (2024), decided 15 February 2024: struck down the Scheme as unconstitutional, violating the voter's right to information under Article 19(1)(a); SBI directed to stop issuing bonds and disclose every purchase since 12 April 2019, with the Election Commission publishing the data.
• Both NOTA and the Electoral Bonds strike-down rest on the same article, Article 19(1)(a), applied to two different underlying rights, worth holding as a deliberate pairing rather than two unrelated facts.

Between the 61st Amendment's clean legislative reform and the two judicially-driven changes that followed, keeping straight which channel produced which change is exactly what separates a confident answer from a plausible-sounding wrong one on this chapter.