HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday directed the Election Commission of India to spell out its stand on the PIL that urged the court not to allow finalisation of electoral rolls for publication in AP unless bogus, duplicate and ineligible voters are deleted from the rolls.
The bench comprising Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan and Justice SV Bhatt was passing this order on the PIL filed by Kethireddy Venkatarami Reddy, former MLA from Anantapur district, seeking directions to the ECI to delete bogus, duplicate and ineligible voters from the State electoral rolls in pursuance of the representation made by him.
Petitioner’s counsel P Sudhakar Reddy told the court that there were about 53 lakh bogus and ineligible voters in the State, but the EC failed to take any steps for their removal in spite of representation made by the petitioner. He urged the court to direct the EC to prosecute booth level and election officials concerned for allegedly breaching their duty in preparation of revised electoral rolls. “There are even voters who are over 100 years old in the list,” he said.
When the bench sought response from the ECI on the issue of preparation of voters’ list in AP, the counsel for the Commission submitted that steps were taken to provide voting right to the citizens by fixing 1 Jan, 2019 as the cut-off date. The draft voters’ list will be announced on Jan 4 next year, he added.
