Chennai: The Madras high court has directed the Election Commission of India to file its counter affidavit to the memo filed by the DMK party, alleging that the ECI has not deleted 5,117 bogus voters from the voters list in R.K.Nagar assembly constituency. Originally, on a petition filed by DMK organisation secretary R.S.Bharathi to purify the voters list in RK Nagar, the First Bench headed by Chief Justice Indira Banerjee directed the ECI to conduct the bye poll to RK Nagar assembly constituency by December 31, after recording the submissions of ECI that the names of 45,819 had been deleted.
However, alleging that 5,117 bogus voters were yet to be deleted from the voters list, senior counsel P.Wilson, appearing for Bharathi had on December 6 made a mention before the First Bench to re-open the case and filed a memo to that effect. When the case came up for hearing on Friday before a division bench comprising Justices T.S.Sivagnanam and K.Ravichandrabaabu, Senior counsel Wilson submitted that the ECI had made a statement before this court that 45,819 voters had been deleted. But, on verification, the petitioner came to know that of the 45,819 voters, still 5,117 bogus voters have not yet been deleted. Now, the ECI admits that 1,947 voters were bogus voters. The petitioner made a representation. Still the election commission authorities were helping the ruling party. The non-deletion has been done purposefully by the Chennai Corporation Commi-ssioner in collusion with the election commissioner. The ECI had made a false statement before the court that 100 percent verification had been done and 45,819 bogus voters had been deleted. The petitioner has 2 CDs to show that 5,117 voters have not yet been deleted from the list. If the ECI was able to show that all the bogus voters were deleted, the petitioner will walk away, Wilson added.
When the bench pointed out that the petitioner can file a contempt petition, Wilson said he cannot file a contempt petition since the First Bench after recording the submissions of ECI, closed the petition saying it has becomes infructuous. Petitioner can only file a petition for perjury since the ECI had made a false representation before the court, Wilson added. Niranjan Rajagopal, appearing for ECI submitted that factually, the petitioner was not correct. The ECI has now found that there were 1,947 multiple entries.
But, it could not delete them from the list now since there was a statutory bar for inclusion or exclusion, after the announcement of the election. Section 23 (3) of Representation of People Act, bars any changes now. There was a separate voting procedure. Separate list will be prepared in respect of 1,947 voters and it will be circulated to the booth officers and the political parties. If a person from the list comes to the booth, the officers will be alerted and the person will not be allowed to vote.
