The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed petitions of Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Sachin Pilot seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to provide the draft voters’ list in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in text format.
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A Bench of justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said, “We have dismissed these petitions”.
On October 8, the court reserved its verdict on the plea of Mr. Nath and Mr. Pilot alleging duplication of voters in the list and sought proper redressal of grievances to ensure free and fair elections.
Mr. Nath's plea said directions should be issued to publish the voters’ lists in a “text format as per rules”, instead of the PDF format, and expeditious decisions taken on all complaints before their final publication.
VVPAT slips verification
The petition said a direction should be given to the poll panel to randomly verify the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with the votes cast on the electronic voting machines (EVMs) at 10 per cent randomly selected polling stations in every constituency.
On September 18, the poll panel, in a affidavit, justified providing the draft electoral roll in PDF format in Madhya Pradesh without the pictures of the voters and said it was done to prevent manipulation of electors’ data.
The Congress leaders' pleas alleged that according to a survey, there were over 60 lakh fake voters in Madhya Pradesh, and similarly, in Rajasthan, there were over 41 lakh duplicate voters.
In Rajasthan, the poll panel had added 71 lakh new voters, the plea said, demanding directions to remove inconsistencies and conduct of free and fair elections.
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