Introduction :- 

Under Rajasthan Panchayati Raj (Second Amendment) Act, 2015 it was made mandatory for people contesting zila parishad, panchayat samiti and municipal elections to have passed Class 10. Those contesting sarpanch elections to have passed Class 8 and those standing for sarpanch elections in panchayats in scheduled areas to have cleared Class 5. Constitutional Validity of the law enacted by Haryana government was challenged in Supreme Court in Rajbala vs State of Haryana case, in which court upheld the validity of law barring the illiterate from contesting panchayat polls in the state. SC held that the Right to Contest is neither fundamental rights, nor merely statutory rights, but are Constitutional Rights. Further, the Right to Contest can be regulated and curtailed through laws passed by the appropriate legislature. The Supreme Court’s interpretation is based on the fact that uneducated or illiterate people getting elected to the local bodies can easily be misled by officials if they don’t know how to write and read.

Panchayati Raj Elections :-

• 73rd and 74th Amendment Act in 1992 provided for mandatory constitution of Panchayati Raj Institution as third tier of government at local level.
• Under Article 243 (K) (4) of Indian Constitution State Government by law can lay down the qualification for elections to local bodies.  Article 243 (O) bans the interference of courts in electoral matters. If there is any dispute in the Panchayat Elections, courts have no jurisdiction over them.
• Panchayat Election can be questioned in the form of an election petition presented to an authority which the state legislature can by law prescribe.
• Haryana Government had passed the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015 requiring minimum qualification for those contesting in panchayat election.
• States like Assam and Uttarakhand have also brought in legislations to make minimum education criteria for contesting local polls.

Arguments against educational criteria :

• Against grassroots democracy: When there is no minimum education criteria to become MLA or MP, it is unfair to make such a criteria for panchayat elections.
• Misplaced Focus: Experts have said that primary role of an elected public representative is to put forward the point of her/his electorate rather than being well-versed in technicalities of administration.
• Discriminatory towards Women & Weaker Sections: Since the rate of literacy is low among the Dalits, Tribals and Women in particular due to societal and historical reasons, this law had disenfranchised a large number of Dalits and Women.
• Exclusionary Move: As per 2011 Census, over 70% of the overall rural population over the age of 20 years got barred from contesting the sarpanch elections in Rajasthan. It defeats the very purpose of the Panchayati Raj institutions, to include citizens in multi-tier local governance from all sections of society.
• Weakens the Panchayati Raj System: Due to lack of candidates who meet the education criteria, the number of sarpanch candidates who have been elected unopposed has more than doubled in the state as compared to the previous polls.
• Abdication of Responsibility: The education criteria penalised the people for failure to meet certain social indicators, when in fact it is the state’s responsibility to provide the infrastructure and incentives for school and adult education.

Arguments in favor of educational criteria :

• Progressive Legislation: It will encourage people to focus on education. People who were till now illiterate will now be encouraged to take up minimum education even if at a later age.
• Need of the Hour: This move may further the debate about having educational criteria for MPs and MLAs too. As in the present era, governance has become a complex issue and we must have educated people as our representatives.
• Improvement in Social Indicators: Experts argue that having Educational Criteria will lead to betterment of other social indicators like lowering of child marriages, female feticide, and overall improvement of health and wellbeing. Having two child norm as a criterion has already lowered the fertility rates in states.
• Role-Model Effect: States rationale is that it will lead to the role-model effect, and citizens in the constituencies will emulate their panchayat leaders, which will lead to social progress.

Conclusion :-

• In his memorandum to the Simon Commission in 1928, the father of the Indian Constitution B.R. Ambedkar said, “Those who insist on literacy as a test and insist upon making it a condition precedent to enfranchisement, in my opinion, commit two mistakes. Their first mistake consists in their belief that an illiterate person is necessarily an unintelligent person…Their second mistake lies in supposing that literacy necessarily imports a higher level of intelligence or knowledge than what the illiterate possesses…”.
• This decision should force a recasting of the debate on finding ways and means by which elected bodies are made more representative. This is because to mandate paternalistically what makes a person a ‘good’ candidate goes