INDIA bloc leaders move halt-SIR plea in Supreme Court, seek audit by retired judge

Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge and nine other INDIA bloc leaders moved a joint petition in the Supreme Court on Monday challenging the ongoing SIR and seeking its audit by a retired judge.

They urged the apex court to summon all the records relating to the SIR, accusing chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of having taken key decisions unilaterally and arbitrarily, without the consent of the other two election commissioners, Sukhbhir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.

The petitioners have sought an immediate suspension of the SIR process until all the petitions pending against the exercise have been decided.

Among the decisions the petition has contested are the controversial changes made to Form 6, which allows people to apply for fresh registration as voters.

The amended Form 6 makes it mandatory for new voters to state whether their parents or grandparents had been mapped to the previous SIR, carried out more than two decades ago.

The petition also urges the apex court to form a committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge to carry out a thorough audit of the SIR exercise, particularly in the context of the large-scale deletions of existing voters’ names.

The panel should examine the booth-wise deletion figures and the reasons for the deletions, and take steps to restore the voters who were removed in an arbitrary manner, the petition says.

The files the petition wants the apex court to direct the Election Commission to produce include the minutes of meetings as well as notings and the objections recorded by the other two election commissioners.

The petition is expected to come up for hearing on Tuesday along with a batch of other petitions that have sought directions such as the immediate withdrawal of all the restrictions placed on the peaceful protests being carried out in Delhi for Gyanesh Kumar’s removal.

Besides Rahul and Kharge, the other petitioners were Saugata Roy (Trinamool), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), Sanjay Raut (Shiv Sena-UBT), M.A. Baby (CPM), D. Raja (CPI), Mahua Majgi (JMM), Supriya Sule (SharadPawar faction of the NCP) and E.T. Muhammed Basheer (IUML).

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant had earlier permitted Rahul and Kharge to file a writ petition before the apex court while declining a personal appointment to submit a memorandum on the subject.