The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted 10 days to petitioners to file a reply to the Election Commission's affidavit defending the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, maintaining that the exercise was authorised by law and the relevant orders were approved unanimously by all three members of the poll panel.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana also issued notices to the poll panel and others on a fresh plea filed by Rajya Sabha MP Dola Sen alleging that changes were made in Form 6 during Bihar SIR without the approval of the top court.
Senior advocate and MP Maneka Guruswamy, appearing for Sen, said the poll panel wrongly claimed that the changes in Form 6 were approved by the top court.
While issuing the notice, the CJI said that all the issues would be examined and asked senior advocate Vikas Singh, who represented the first petitioner, Rakesh Kumar Singh, to file a rejoinder in 10 days to the poll panel's reply affidavit filed late Monday evening.
The poll panel, in its 248-page response to the petition against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and the decisions taken by it, strongly defended the SIR.
Rejecting the allegations that Form 6 had been amended, the poll panel said that no changes were made to the statutory Form 6 used for voter registration.
"The attempt to make aspersions against the Election Commission is unfortunate," said the affidavit, filed by Deputy Election Commissioner Bhanu Prakash Yeturu on behalf of the EC.
The EC said the affidavit itself had been approved for filing by a unanimous decision of all three members of the poll panel.
The pleas were filed after The Indian Express reported on September 25 that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected on record at least 14 times over the last 10 months to decisions and orders on SIR of electoral rolls that they said were issued without their knowledge or recommendation.
The claim has sparked protests by opposition parties and the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), demanding the removal of CEC Kumar.
According to the petition, about 1.2 crore of Maharashtra’s 9.79 crore voters were flagged for “logical discrepancies” in the SIR exercise.
Another plea, by RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj and one other petitioner, takes on the ECI requirement that voters excluded from Delhi’s draft rolls must reapply using Form 6. That plea has been preponed to October 28.