Petition Filed In Madhya Pradesh HC Seeking Stay On SIR, Court Seeks Response

Indore: Madhya Pradesh High Court has sought responses from the State Election Commission, state government and others on a petition challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The matter is scheduled for hearing on November 26.

The petition, filed by former Congress councillor, Dillip Kaushal, alleged of discrepancies in the voter list revision programme. It claimed that the by-laws of the Madhya Pradesh Municipal Election Rules, 1994 are flawed.

The petition has sought a stay on the voter list revision programme citing issues such as failure to make public applications for addition and deletion of voters during the revision program, failure to set up polling stations as directed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) and appointment of ineligible employees as booth-level officers (BLOs). It also alleged that a large number of voters have been registered at an alleged building number '0' in an Indore Municipal Corporation area.

After hearing the case, the division bench of Justices Vijay Kumar Shukla and Bindu Kumar Drivedi of the Indore division bench directed State Election Commission, state government's urban administration department, Indore collector, and registration officers of all the Assembly constituencies in Indore to respond by November 26.

Petitioner Dilip Kaushal said, "Due to numerous errors found in the voter list revision programme and the non-disclosure of the list of applications, citizens have been unable to file objections. Directly amending the voter list without hearing the matter is evidence of vote theft. The Indore voter list shows the address of thousands of voters under building number '0' which was not corrected despite objections."

The petition also states, "Contrary to the ECI's instructions, the number of voters at 1,761 polling stations is not in proportion to the actual voter-count. Approximately 475 polling stations have fewer than 500 voters while polling station number 34 in Ward 50 of Brajeshwari has only 40 voters and the appointed BLO is also not qualified."

Advocates Vibhor Khandelwal and Jayesh Gurnani said that the contradictions between state rules and central law along with the errors are a violation of the constitutional rights of citizens. "The Madhya Pradesh government and the State Election Commission were expected to rectify the errors but since they failed, a petition has been filed before the Madhya Pradesh High Court," the lawyers said.

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