Kerala - Kannur   

Congress to launch legal battle over ‘fake’ residency certificates

KANNUR: A battery of lawyers sponsored by the Indian Lawyers Congress (ILC) has been arrayed for a concerted legal battle on behalf of the district Congress leadership to prosecute those responsible for what it calls illegal enrolment of a large number of voters on the electoral roll for the recent Kannur Assembly byelection.

ILC office-bearers and the district Congress leadership here have drawn up an action plan to book officials who allegedly issued fake residency certificates and people who obtained the certificates to get enrolled on the electoral roll.

The Congress here has alleged that a large number of Communist Party of India (Marxist) supporters from neighbouring constituencies were issued fake residency certificates by some village officers and panchayat secretaries in the constituency to facilitate their enrolment on the voters’ list.

ILC State secretary T. Asaf Ali said the legal battle would include a campaign to make the public aware of the legal consequences of issuance of unauthorised electors’ photo identity cards (EPIC). He said the issuance of fake residency certificates was punishable under Section 197 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act. A false certificate issued without the knowledge of a house owner could be misused, say, for getting SIM cards or as an address proof, Mr. Ali said.

ILC functionaries, including district convener of the United Democratic Front (UDF) Sunny Joseph, T.O. Mohanan, C.K. Ratnakaran and T.P. Hareendran, were involved in the initiative. They have identified 1,000-odd cases of ‘double entry’ – voters in another constituency getting enrolled in Kannur constituency.

Steps are on to identify more such unauthorised voters, they said.

The legal battle was not being conceived as an election issue, but a social issue, Mr. Ali said, adding that the Congress was committed to protecting the people from possible dangers.

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