Election Commission Legal Challenges
Courts Face Multiple Legal Challenges Over Election Commission Decisions and Voter Rolls
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The Supreme Court will hear a petition questioning whether Election Commission decisions under Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar were made collectively, as required for the three-member body; the ECI says its decisions, including those on the electoral-roll revision, were unanimous. The Court declined to advance a hearing on West Bengal appeals over names excluded during the Special Intensive Revision, leaving it scheduled for October 5, one day before the Nandigram and Rejinagar bypolls; more than 18,000 appeals were reportedly pending. In Maharashtra, the Bombay High Court set an October 22 hearing for a petition seeking restoration of deleted voters, scrutiny of alleged unilateral ECI orders and an independent inquiry into data deletions. The Calcutta High Court deferred the Indian Secular Front’s challenge to the allocation of its former “envelope” symbol to the Democratic Trinamool Congress for the West Bengal bypolls until Monday, questioning the Election Commission’s fairness and why the symbol had not been reserved. Separately, concerned citizens urged the president to replace the Election Commission, halt the revision and order fresh state elections, alleging that millions of eligible voters were excluded and the appeals process was inadequate.
Key Points
1
The ECI said that concerns raised by commissioners Sandhu and Joshi were part of the draft-stage process, and that their letters to the Cabinet Secretary concerned an officer on deputation—not policy or IT matters.
2
The Bombay High Court questioned whether the Maharashtra voters’ case belonged before its Kolhapur circuit bench and asked what private right the petitioners asserted against the ECI; the petitioners said they were voters whose rights were being infringed.
3
In the ISF symbol dispute, the Calcutta High Court had asked the ECI whether it issued a notification before allocating the ‘envelope’ symbol to the Democratic Trinamool Congress; ISF sought to have the symbol frozen, saying it was also contesting the bypolls.
4
The Cockroach Janta Party said it would begin a nationwide protest on October 2 and continue until CEC Gyanesh Kumar resigned; it alleged the SIR had excluded more than 130 million names from draft rolls.
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