New Delhi, Oct 13 A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Election Commission to provide an appropriate mechanism for inclusion of those voters, whose names were omitted from the electoral roll pursuant to SIR in Delhi, without requiring them to declare that they are applying for inclusion for the first time.
The application also sought a direction that no previously enrolled elector should be required to submit a declaration contained in Form 6 “which is factually inapplicable to such elector”, and that an appropriate form/declaration be prescribed for inclusion of previously enrolled electors.
Form 6 is an application through which an eligible person seeks inclusion in the electoral roll.
The application has been filed in a pending petition which sought a direction to the poll panel to forthwith place in public domain the list of all electors issued notices during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Delhi, along with specific reason for each notice.
“The present application raises the issue arising from the mechanism prescribed for re-inclusion of previously enrolled electors whose names have been omitted from the electoral roll pursuant to the SIR in the NCT of Delhi,” it said.
The application, filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan, also sought a direction to the poll panel not to reject an otherwise maintainable claim for inclusion or restoration solely on the ground that the applicant has not furnished the additional SIR declaration form.
While hearing the main petition on September 22, the apex court had told the poll panel that notices under the SIR exercise in Delhi were going to people “almost mechanically” and it should look for some additional safeguards.
It had told the poll panel that the basis for identifying a “logical discrepancy” required clarification.
The plea filed by Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri also sought disclosure of criteria, definitions, algorithmic parameters and operational guidelines governing the classification of voters under the category of ‘logical discrepancies’.
On August 31, the poll panel published a draft electoral rolls under which 47 lakh voters were deleted from the list of 1.45 crore total voters in Delhi.
The poll panel had said more than 43.32 lakh voters were found to have shifted or were absent during the SIR, over 2.82 lakh voters were found to have died, while more than 1.41 lakh were enrolled at multiple places.
(PTI News)
