Rejecting any interim relief sought in a bunch of petitions in connection with the deletion of names from voters’ list in Mumbai city and suburbs and Pune, the Bombay High Court Tuesday accepted the state government’s undertaking for revision of electoral rolls before the upcoming state Assembly elections. A bench of Justices and M S Sonak said there was no explanation on the steps taken by petitioners, who were “neither poor nor illiterate”, to verify about the issue when the final voters’ list was published. The court said the petitioners had “constantly emphasised upon magnitude of deletions” and negligence on the part of electoral authorities. “However, there was no adequate explanation forthcoming from the petitioners, who are neither poor nor illiterate, on the steps adopted by them to verify that their names continued on the electoral rolls or for inclusion of their names in the electoral rolls, no sooner draft or final electoral rolls came to be published,” observed the judges. The court remarked that Amol Palekar, one of the petitioners, only made a representation regarding the deletion of his name on April 19 and 24, 2014, when admittedly the draft election rolls were published on September 16, 2013 and final rolls on January 31, 2014. “On the issue of interim relief, petitioners have made out no case whatsoever to deserve the same, save and except some directions in the context of revision of electoral rolls to be undertaken in the future,” said the judges. “Such directions, as shall be clarified, have no nexus with the on going Lok Sabha election process,” they added. Observing that the “magnitude of deletions is considerably high”, the court said, “However, numbers alone cannot determine illegality or otherwise of such exercise.” The HC remarked that the petitioners seemed to have “ignored” that the magnitude of the task undertaken by the Election Commission of India in itself was “mammoth”. “There is no scope to consider grant of interim relief to include names of voters in the electoral rolls prior to conclusion of the present Lok Sabha election process of 2014,” the bench pointed out. In court’s opinion, such relief would come in “direct conflict” with the provisions contained in Section 23(3) of the Representation of People Act that imposes a freeze upon effecting any amendments in the electoral rolls from the last date for submitting nominations up to the conclusion of the election process. The court, which had reserved the order on May 8, said Tuesday that since there should be “adequate publicity”, the state should issue notices/ads in two newspapers in Pune and three in Mumbai including a Gujarati paper. While accepting the state government’s undertaking for the state Assemble elections, the court said, “We are satisfied that there are several provisions both under the said Act as well as the election rules, which would enable the respondents to undertake the exercise of revision of electoral rolls, so that names of persons which have been deleted can be once again included, subject of course to necessary compliance and eligibility requirements as prescribed under the law.” While admitting the petitions and directing all parties to file their replies within eight weeks from today, the HC had kept open Advocate General Darius Khambatta’s preliminary objection over the maintainability of the petitions. The court was told by the petitioners’ lawyers on Tuesday that over 2 lakh names, both in Mumbai city and suburbs and Pune, were deleted. The lawyer, representing Palekar and a few others, had urged the court to grant “appropriate relief”. On the other hand, senior counsel A A Kumbhakoni, who was representing two Mumbai-based NGOs Action for Good Governance and Networking In India (AGNI) and Birthright, sought re-poll for those who could not exercise their franchise. aamir.khan@expressindia.com
