SC To Consider Plea Against EC’s Decision To Freeze Electoral Rolls Ahead Of Polls

New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a fresh plea along with pending pleas on April 13 challenging the freezing of voter rolls by the Election Commission ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in West Bengal. The ballot box committee finalized the parliamentary seats that will go to the polls in the first place by freezing the voter rolls on April 9.

Assembly elections in West Bengal will be held in two phases on April 23 and 29, and votes will be counted in all polling stations on May 4.

Freezing the voter rolls means that a new person who has been deleted cannot be added to the voter list in these parliamentary ballot boxes.

A lawyer appealed to the bench, comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi, to immediately take up the defense against the freeze.

The lawyer said that many objections against deletions from the voter rolls were still pending and that the ballot box committee froze the voter rolls on April 9.

“We will consider the petition on April 13,” the CJI said.

Senior advocate DS Naidu, who participated in the survey panel, said the freeze date was April 9 and nothing would be taken into consideration after that.

“The right to vote remains; these appellants are in a similar situation to others whose appeals have been allowed,” Naidu said. he said.

“We are thinking, what was the architecture? There is an electoral demarcation line and below that is the constitutional right to be on the electoral roll and vote in subsequent elections. This is much higher and permanent,” Justice Bagchi said.

The CJI said the person was not permanently deprived.

On April 6, the bench noted that around 60 lakh claims and objections of those excluded from voter lists in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of poll-bound voter lists in West Bengal have been adjudicated.

It had requested the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to constitute a three-member panel of former senior judges to create uniform procedures for the 19 courts to decide appeals against deletions from electoral rolls.