Plea in SC seeks setting up of SIT to inquire into allegations of electoral roll manipulation

New Delhi, Aug 20 (PTI) A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking the constitution of a special investigation team headed by a former judge to inquire into allegations of electoral roll manipulation in Bengaluru Central and other affected constituencies and cited the August 7 press conference by Rahul Gandhi where he presented data to buttress these claims.

The plea also sought the apex court's direction that no further revision or finalisation of electoral rolls be undertaken until compliance with the court's directions and the completion of an independent audit of the rolls.

The petition, filed by advocate Rohit Pandey, referred to the August 7 press conference by Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Gandhi where he had made explosive claims of a "huge criminal fraud" in polls through "collusion" between the BJP and the Election Commission and had cited an analysis of voter rolls in a constituency in Karnataka last year.

Soon after Gandhi levelled the charge asserting that "vote chori" (vote theft) is an "atom bomb on our democracy", the Chief Electoral Officers of Karnataka and Maharashtra had asked the former Congress chief to share names of electors he claimed were "wrong" in the voters' list along with a signed declaration for poll authorities to initiate "necessary proceedings" in the matter.

On August 17, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had said Gandhi should either give a declaration under oath within seven days on his allegations of irregularities in the voter list, or else his 'vote theft' claims would be rendered baseless and invalid.

The plea filed in the apex court has urged the court to issue binding guidelines to the Election Commission to ensure transparency, accountability and integrity in the preparation, maintenance and publication of electoral rolls, including mechanisms for detection and prevention of duplicate or fictitious entries.

It also sought a direction to the EC to publish electoral rolls in accessible, machine-readable and OCR-compliant formats to enable meaningful verification, audit and public scrutiny.

"The petitioner has observed grave irregularities in the electoral rolls of Bengaluru Central Parliamentary Constituency (Mahadevapura Assembly Constituency), which, on the face of it, warrant urgent consideration by this court," the plea said.

It said that the intervention by the apex court was essential to uphold and preserve the sanctity of the Constitution, which could only be effectively ensured by the court.

The plea claimed that in Maharashtra, after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and prior to the Assembly elections, within a span of around four months, about 39 lakh new voters were added to the electoral roll, whereas in the preceding five years, only around 50 lakh voters were added.

"Such a sudden and disproportionate increase raises a serious question on the transparency of the Election Commission in the process of addition of names to the voter list," the plea said.

It said the apex court has consistently held that free and fair elections constitute part of the 'basic structure' of the Constitution and cannot be diluted or subverted by any legislative or executive action. PTI ABA RT