NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday in its order refused to entertain and pass order on a PIL filed by lawyer, Rohit Pandey, seeking a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by former judge to inquire into the allegations raised by Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi of large-scale electoral roll manipulation.
"We are not inclined to entertain the petition, which is purportedly filed in public interest," said a two-judge bench of the top court, headed byJustice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi.
The apex court, however, in its order, said the petitioner (Rohit Pandey) may pursue the matter before the Election Commission of India (ECI), "if so advised."
Before passing the order of not entertaining the plea of Pandey, the court noted in the record the submissions of the petitioner's counsel.
The Supreme Court lawyer, Pandey, in his PIL cited the allegations levelled by Gandhi on August 7 regarding the electoral-roll manipulation in Bengaluru Central and other constituencies.
Pandey sought directions from the top court to frame and issue binding guidelines to the ECI 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.
"There should be no further revision or finalisation of electoral rolls be undertaken until compliance with the court's directions and completion of an independent audit of the rolls," stated the plea of Pandey.
He also sought directions to the ECI from the top court for passing directions to publish electoral rolls in accessible, machine-readable and OCR-compliant formats to enable meaningful verification, audit and public scrutiny.
The petitioner, Pandey, said that after independently verifying the authenticity of these reports through publicly available government data, he found sufficient prima facie material to establish that the allegations reveal a systemic attempt to dilute and distort the value of lawful votes, thereby necessitating urgent intervention of the Supreme Court.
