The controversy surrounding the deletion of several voters from electoral rolls in local body polls reached the Gujarat High Court today with a public interest litigation demanding that such voters be allowed to exercise their franchise.
Advocate K R Koshti has filed the petition.
The division bench of acting Chief Justice Jayant Patel and Justice V M Pancholi issued notices to the State Election Commission and Ahmedabad Collector Rajkumar Beniwal, posting the hearing for tomorrow.
According to Koshti, more than one lakh voters in the city alone could not vote during the November 22 election to the municipal corporation as their names were 'deleted' from the electoral rolls at the last moment.
Voting for Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar and Vadodara corporations was held on that day.
Citing media reports, the PIL alleges that the SEC and the city Collector (who was the election officer) acted in an unjust, unfair and illegal manner by not allowing voters to use their franchise.
Thousands of voters in Jamnagar and other cities too could not vote for the same reason, it says.
Many voters complained on the election day that their names had been removed without any prior intimation, it says and demands that in future final list of voters should be prepared two months before the election date.
In the present case, all such voters should be allowed to to cast their vote before the date of counting, December 2, and the High Court should appoint a judicial commission to investigate and find out "under whose direction or influence such incident happened", the PIL says.
