The Supreme Court today issued notices to the Election Commission of India and others in a petition filed by Opposition leaders led by LoP Rahul Gandhi. The petition had challenged the ECI’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and alleged voter deletions.
The Court sought responses from the ECI, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.
The Court also expressed strong objections to the conduct of one of the 13 petitioners who challenged the manner in which the ECI is conducting the SIR of electoral rolls.
“We would like to ask one of the petitioners about his conduct on the next date of hearing,” the bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said. Before filing the petition, Gandhi and other opposition leaders had organised a march towards the Supreme Court on October 12, leading to commotion at the Supreme Court premises.
To recall, the petition seeks production of records related to the SIR exercise, review of decision-making processes, alignment of controversial Form 6 with the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, audit of SIR-related deletions and boothwise publication of deleted voter names along with reasons for deletion.
The petition also seeks direction to the ECI that all SIR-related matters be taken collectively and suspension of SIR across all states until the petition is adjudicated. The petition urged the top court to issue directions to ensure that no elector is deleted without notice and opportunity of hearing.
The petitioners include opposition leaders such as LoP Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Saugata Roy, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejaswi Yadav, Sanjay Raut, MA Baby, D Raja, Supriya Sule and ET Mohammad Bashir, among others.
(With inputs from ANI)
