NEW DELHI: Opposition INDIA bloc members, led by leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and joined by thousands of supporters, undertook their march to Supreme Court on Monday to file a joint petition seeking intense scrutiny into a host of issues – functioning of EC, preventing CEC Gyanesh Kumar from taking decisions “unilaterally”, “arbitrary” deletion of voters during SIR, and the architecture governing use and deployment of EVMs.Rahul and other petitioners – Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, TMC’s Saugata Roy, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, Sena (UBT)’s Sanjay Raut, CPM’s M A Baby, CPI’s D Raja, JMM’s Mahua Majhi, NCP(SP)’s Supriya Sule and IUML’s E T Mohammed Basheer – sought suspension of SIR without questioning its legality, and, inclusion of eligible voters in rolls of Punjab and other poll-bound states.On CJI’s refusal to meet the opposition delegation, Rahul said, “We respect CJI and SC. We are quite happy he has given us a path forward. To tell us we can file a petition is a path forward.” The petition requested the court to set up a panel led by a retired SC judge, comprising technical experts and persons of eminence to “examine integrity of electoral-roll databases and SIR rollout”.INDIA bloc seeks complete files, objections by ECs to SIR, access logs, meeting minutesThe petitioners also wanted the panel to ‘review processes, procedures, protocols and technical architecture governing EVMs’.They said, “The validity of SIR does not dispense with the requirement that each decision taken in its implementation must conform to Constitution, governing statutes and applicable rules.”The present plea is instituted in the larger public interest of safeguarding the constitutional right of every eligible citizen to vote, maintaining institutional independence and collective functioning of EC, and ensuring that the preparation and revision of poll rolls are carried out transparently, lawfully and in a manner that inspires public confidence in the democratic process, the opposition functionaries argued.Flagging alleged unlawful modification of Form 6, used for enrolment of new voters, the petitioners, through advocate Prasanna S, said, “Addition of an unauthorised condition to a statutory form may impose an unlawful burden upon eligible citizens seeking registration, particularly first-time voters, and may result in the exclusion of persons otherwise entitled to be enrolled.”The SC registry pointed out several defects in the petition, and the counsel said he will cure them in due course.The opposition members also objected to centralised and opaque functioning of ECINET and ERONET poll rolls database and the “large-scale exclusion of voters without adequate notice, hearing or an effective mechanism for restoration in case of wrongful or erroneous deletions”.
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Invoking fundamental rights of people under Articles 14, 19, 21 read with Article 324 (EC) of the Constitution, they sought a direction from SC to EC to produce in court “complete files, agendas, minutes, file noting and objections recorded by election commissioners in respect of each of the disputed decisions related to SIR, together with relevant ECINET and ERONET access logs and complete file recording on EC’s June 24, 2025 decision to commence SIR across the country”.Pending decision on the petition, they said EC must function as per the mandate of the Constitution in a democratic manner and ensure Form 6 conformed to Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.They wanted EC to “publish, booth-wise, the names of all electors deleted during the SIR, together with the reasons for each deletion and a breakdown of deletions by gender and age, and to provide an effective and functional mechanism for restoring the names of electors found eligible for inclusion in the poll rolls”.
