E-Paper
Extend SIR deadline, publish names of deleted voters in Kerala: SC directs EC
The bench, also comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vijay Bishnoi said, “Having regard to the difficulties allegedly being experienced by people in the state, we allow ECI to extend time.”
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to extend time, preferably by two weeks, for filing objections and publicly display the list of voters removed from the draft electoral roll in Kerala following the special intensive revision (SIR).
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant passed the order after noting grievances raised by the petitioners challenging SIR who pointed out that nearly 2.4 million people have been deleted from the draft roll, and the list has not been made public creating a lot of confusion among voters as the last date for submitting claims will come to an end by January 22.
The bench, also comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vijay Bishnoi said, “Having regard to the difficulties allegedly being experienced by people in the state, we allow ECI to extend time.”
ECI’s lawyer Eklavya Dwivedi told the court that the commission has in the past extended time on two occasions and it is aware of the ground realities. While the court left it to the poll panel to decide how much time is to be granted, it observed, “You consider extending the time by two weeks.”
The court further asked the commission to ensure that the list of deleted voters is publicly displayed as was done in the case of Bihar.
As per the Kerala state poll panel, the draft electoral list published last month has 25.4 million voters of which 2.4 million were removed following SIR, including those who have died or migrated or simply cannot be traced.
The court also took up the matter related to SIR in Uttar Pradesh where ECI informed the court that a response will be filed by end of the day.
Senior advocate Salman Khurshid appearing for Barabanki Congress MP Tanuj Punia pointed out that the final draft roll following SIR shows lower number of rural voters compared to the roll prepared at the Panchayat level. He indicated that a representation was made to the ECI but no response was forthcoming.
Nearly 28.9 million voters were removed from the draft roll in UP at the end of the SIR exercise of which more than 4.6 million were declared to be dead voters with the remaining having migrated or being untraced.
Senior advocate Siddharth Dave appearing for another petitioner in the UP case urged the court to consider allowing linkage of Aadhaar card with the voter ID card considering the fact that the state has a large number of migrant labourers.
The court agreed to consider the matter after going through the response of the poll panel.
