The Supreme Court has issued notices to the Election Commission, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Union government, Delhi Police, and various opposition leaders over multiple petitions challenging voter deletions during a special intensive revision of electoral rolls, and the de-notification of Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court took action on multiple petitions filed by Opposition leaders including Rahul Gandhi, Saugata Roy, Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, and Sanjay Raut. The petitions were filed to challenge large-scale voter deletions during a special intensive revision of electoral rolls, seeking an independent audit of voter deletions, disclosure of the poll panel's internal records, and an interim suspension of the exercise. A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant clubbed these petitions with petitions already pending before the court challenging the validity of the voter roll revision. The court also issued notice to the Union government and Delhi Police on a separate petition regarding the de-notification of Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site. The court stated that it will ask one of the petitioners, an unspecified Opposition leader, to explain their conduct. The notice on behalf of this petitioner will be entertained on a provisional basis, subject to the petitioner explaining their conduct. The petitions were filed after the leaders’ request for a meeting with Chief Justice Kant to submit a memorandum on the voter roll revision and the functioning of the Election Commission was declined.
The petitions were filed amid protests in Delhi by opposition parties, student groups, and the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign to demand Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation over concerns about the functioning of the Election Commission and its handling of the voter roll revision. Protests against Kumar have been held in the national capital and other parts of the country since October 2.
The trigger for this round of protests and the petition was a September 23 investigation by The Indian Express, which revealed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had formally objected 14 times in 10 months to decisions by the poll panel related to the special intensive revision, saying some had been taken without their knowledge.
Source:
Scroll.in
