The Supreme Court in the case Samvidhan Bachao Trust v Election Commission of India observed and seek a response from the Election Commission of India, ESI concerning the steps it has taken to revise the electoral rolls and tackle the issue of duplication of entries in those instances where either the electors have been deceased or have shifted their place of residence.
The bench comprising of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra was hearing the present petition filed by Samvidhan Bachao Trust, an NGO.
The counsel, Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora informed the bench that no response has come from the Election Commission in pursuance of the previous order of the Court.
The court directed the Election Commission to specifically to put its response, and there is no response as. yet.
The bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud replied that, this court cannot issued notice as yet and seek assistance from the standing counsel of ECI, Mr Amit Sharma. Thus, Mr Sharma has sought time for filing a response on behalf of the ECI. The bench in its order asked the ECI for filing the short counter within 2 weeks on the steps taken by the Election Commission for the revision of the electoral rolls in respect of duplicate entries. In the previous hearing, the counsel, Senior Advocate Arora, representing the petitioner in the matter asserted before the court that the current process of updating electoral rolls primarily focused on removing names of deceased individuals those who have changed their place of residence. It has also been emphasized by the counsel, Senior Advocate Arora that no concrete had been taken to tackle the issue of duplicate entries in the electoral rolls.
Further, it has been pointed out by Arora that the exercise for addressing these issues should have already been completed between July and August of the current year, but the same had not been done.
The court in the case observed and has relied upon the communication of the Chief Electoral Officer, Uttar Pradesh, thus, she further stressed that no steps have been taken for the verification of duplicate entries.
The court while considering the facts and circumstances of the case observed that the said court decides to proceed in the matter, it would be appropriate if we direct that a copy of the Petition be served on Mr Amit Sharma, the Standing Counsel appearing for the Election Commission of India.