HC refuses to order ECI to revise over 1 lakh votes in Nampally electoral rolls

Hyderabad: On Thursday, the Telangana High Court disposed of a petition seeking special revision of the electoral rolls to ‘delete/remove all bogus, shifted, duplicate and deceased persons’ from the list of voters in the Nampally Assembly Constituency.

The Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice NV Shravan Kumar, was processing a writ petition filed by Mohammed Feroz Khan, who contested elections from the Nampally Assembly Constituency on a Congress party ticket. The petitioner sought directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) ordering it to take up a special revision of the electoral rolls in the Nampally constituency.

The petitioner informed the court that the Telangana State Election Commission released the final electoral list for the ensuing Telangana Assembly Elections on November 30. However, it said that the electoral rolls of the Nampally Assembly Constituency (63) have 1,13,310 votes which are not authentic.

The petitioner told the court that 10,473 votes belonged to dead persons, 45,567 were bogus votes, and 45,567 voters in the list had already moved out of the Nampally Constituency.

Hence, the petitioner sought a direction to the Election Commission of India to take up a special revision of the electoral rolls of the Nampally Assembly Constituency, prior to the elections in the Telangana State.

Special revision complete, says ECI

Avinash Desai, the standing counsel for the ECI countered the arguments of the petitioner. He informed the Division Bench that the ECI is duty-bound to ensure free and fair elections.

“With respect to that, the ECI, exercising its powers under Section 21 2(a) of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1950, the chief electoral officer has already undertaken the work of revision of the electoral rolls and published the draft electoral rolls on August 21 inviting objections and revisions from the State government and others,” the standing counsel said.

“Objections to the draft electoral rolls were also submitted from August 21 to September 19, and after taking into account the claims and objections, the ECI published the final electoral rolls on October 10,” the standing counsel informed the court.

Voters asked to approach ECI directly

The standing counsel for the ECI further informed the court that, despite the special revision conducted, if a person is aggrieved, he or she can approach the chief electoral officer under Sections 22 and 23 of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1950, for redressal of their grievance prior to the filing of the nomination.

The CJ Bench, after hearing the contentions of both counsels, said that no further directions to the ECI are required since the CEO has already issued the revised electoral rolls on October 4, after taking into account the objections and claims of the contenders and the State government.

Further, the Chief Justice, while disposing of the writ petition, in his order, said, “The validity of the revised electoral rolls has not been asserted by the petitioner, even otherwise, the aforesaid electoral rolls cannot be challenged.”

The court said that the validity of the revised electoral rolls cannot be examined in proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, and any person aggrieved by the final publication of the electoral rolls can seek remedies under Sections 22 and 23 of the RP Act, 1950, to seek deletion and addition of an entry before the chief registration officer.