HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court on Thursday suggested the petitioner and Congress leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy to approach the Election Commission of India to report about any discrepancies, including the presence of ineligible and bogus voters, in the State electoral rolls. Observing it would not be possible for the court to examine every election issue at the micro level, the bench said such issues could be taken to the notice of election tribunal for adjudication.
As the election notification would be issued on November 12, there was scope for making changes and corrections in the voters’ list till filing of nomination papers on November 19, the bench noted. The bench, comprising Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan and Justice SV Bhatt, was dealing with the PIL filed by Shashidhar Reddy alleging large-scale discrepancies to the extent of about 70 lakh voters in the rolls and sought direction to the ECI to weed out duplicate voters before the conduct of polls to the State Legislative Assembly.
Petitioner’s counsel Jandhyala Ravi Shankar told the court that there were still lakhs of bogus voters in the State electoral rolls. It was not proper for the ECI to tell that the internet services were not proper for deletion of bogus voters, he added.
Disputing with the submissions of the petitioner’s counsel, ECI standing counsel Avinash Desai said that the petitioner’s allegations were baseless. The election notification would be issued on November 12 and there was facility for making changes in the voters’ list till November 19, he added.