BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Monday directed the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) and Election Commission of India (ECI) to file its response on whether there is an outer limit for considering the applications of fresh voters in the electoral roll.
“In what manner is the rejection of application, along with the reasons, communicated to the person? Does the Election Commission fix any outer limit for deciding the claims or objection filed by citizens?” the court asked the CEO and ECI to specify the same.
Hearing the petition filed by Whitefield Rising, a city-based NGO, the division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S R Krishna Kumar also asked them to specify the outer limit for exclusion and transfer of names from the voters’ list.
“Have guidelines been issued by the Election Commission, with regard to the procedure to be laid down in the provision to Section 21 A of the the Registration of Electors Rules, for deletion of names from the electoral rolls,” the court asked the ECI to specify in its additional objections, to be filed within a month.
Stating that there is a mechanism to determine the number of applications submitted online, the petitioner has asked the court to issue directions to the ECI, to put in place a mechanism for processing all kinds of applications in the electoral rolls. The status of the application should be made known to the applicant, the petitioner urged. The court adjourned the hearing to December 10, 2019.