Ordinary Residence for Electoral Registration

An ordinarily resident person is one who normally lives in a constituency as part of the regular course of life. Under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, this is a factual connection with the place, not necessarily permanent residence, domicile, or ownership of a house.

Statutory test

Under Section 20, ordinary residence is determined from all relevant facts and the prescribed rules. The inquiry focuses on where the person normally lives, while recognizing that a temporary absence does not necessarily break that connection.

• Merely owning or possessing a dwelling house in a constituency does not make a person ordinarily resident there.
• A person temporarily absent from the usual place of residence does not cease to be ordinarily resident solely because of that absence.
• Confinement in a penal or mental-health institution does not by itself make the inmate ordinarily resident at that institution.

Relevance to electoral registration

Under Section 19, a citizen who is at least 18 years old on the qualifying date and is ordinarily resident in a constituency is entitled to registration in its electoral roll, unless disqualified.

• Sections 17 and 18 prohibit registration in more than one constituency and registration more than once in the same constituency.
• Ordinary residence is therefore the territorial link that determines the electoral roll in which an eligible elector may be enrolled.

Deemed residence for service electors

The Act creates special rules for persons having a service qualification, including specified members of the armed forces, certain armed police personnel serving outside their state, and persons employed under the Government of India in posts outside India.

• Such persons are deemed ordinarily resident in the constituency where they would have resided but for their service.
• A spouse ordinarily residing with a service-qualified person may receive the corresponding deemed-residence treatment, subject to the Act.