BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court adjourned the hearing to Tuesday the public interest litigation filed by writer Devanuru Mahadeva, historian Ramachandra Guha, Major General S G Vombatkere (retd), former vice-chancellor Sabhiha Bhoomigowda, seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to extend the timeline presently notified for each phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Karnataka, as revised by the order dated July 15 from one to three months.
A division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice KS Hemalekha adjourned the matter on Monday after hearing for some time as the counsel for the petitioners sought some time to produce the details of the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court for SIR.
Stating that the administrative infrastructure deployed in the state has not been commensurate with the scale of exercise to cover 5.5 crore electors, the petitioners have also sought directions to the ECI and the Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka to establish and operationalise functional voter facilitation centres at every polling booth in the state.
Referring to the public statements of Chief Minister linking continued access to the state’s welfare schemes, including its flagship guarantee schemes, to retention of one’s name on the electoral roll following the SIR, the petitioners requested the court to direct the chief secretary not to withdraw any social welfare schemes from persons who are not included in the voter rolls post SIR.
This apart, the petitioners prayed the court to issue directions to the ECI to clarify what falls within the ‘other’ sub-category of the absentee/shifted/dead/duplicate classification, and to direct that no elector’s name be excluded from the draft electoral roll under that sub-category without disclosed and specific reasons recorded and communicated to the elector.
They also requested the court to issue direction to the ECI to publish, in clear and accessible written form, the complete set of criteria that will result in an electors name being flagged as a logical discrepancy, and to further direct that no such flag be applied to any electors name without prior notice to the elector and a reasonable opportunity to respond, in accordance with the principles of natural justice, before the name is excluded from the draft electoral roll.
The petitioners further stated that a direction be issued to the ECI to consider specific concerns raised in the letter of the government of Karnataka dated June 15 and to issue written guidelines in relation to the conduct of the SIR in the state addressing the same in a time-bound manner.
The petitioners stated that, as directed by the ECI and as commenced in the state, it is hedged in by a specific set of procedural safeguards prescribed by the ECI itself. These safeguards are not optional or directory. They are the very mechanism by which the ECI seeks to reconcile the intrusive and burden-shifting character of the SIR exercise with the constitutional guarantees.
