CHENNAI: The Madras HC has directed the EC and the State Chief Electoral Officer not to precipitate the issue relating to election to R K Nagar Assembly constituency by notifying the election date.
A directive to this effect was issued by Justice K Ravichandrabaabu, when a writ petition from R S Bharathi, organising secretary of DMK and MP, came up for hearing on Friday.
The petition prayed for a direction to purify the voters list for R K Nagar by removing the bogus voters from the electoral rolls before conducting the by-election to RK Nagar.
Petitioner’s senior counsel P Wilson submitted that right from January 2017, representations were given by DMK district secretary SL Sudhersanam and despite pointing out that 43,861 bogus voters were found in the mother electoral roll published on January 5 this year and despite the Election Commission admitting that about 17,000 bogus voters are found in the electoral rolls, the EC had not taken any steps to purify the electoral rolls.
It was also submitted that of 2.6 lakhs voters, nearly 1/6th, were bogus and therefore the ‘true will’ of the electorate will not be reflected if election is conducted on the basis of the present electoral rolls. In view of the restrictions contained in Sec. 21 of The Representation of the People Act, the revision can be done only before the by-election notification is announced. Therefore, counsel sought to restrain EC from notifying the schedule.
EC counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan produced a letter dated October 23 last of the Chief Electoral Officer before the judge and said 100 per cent door-to-door verification is planned in RK Nagar.
The first bench, while passing orders on a PIL earlier, had directed the authorities to conduct the elections before December 31, he pointed out and prayed the judge to post the matter before the first bench. When Wilson submitted that there are chances for EC to announce the election schedule before the matter is heard by the first bench, the judge directed that till such time, the election authorities should not precipitate the matter.
‘Purify list’
A writ petition by R S Bharati of DMK had prayed for a direction to purify the voters list by removing the bogus voters from the electoral rolls before the by-election