The Supreme Court on Thursday urged the Election Commission to “sympathetically consider” requests to extend the deadline for submitting enumeration forms as part of the ongoing revision of voter rolls in Uttar Pradesh and Kerala, Live Law reported.
The bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was told by advocate Kapil Sibal that 25 lakh names have been deleted in the electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh alone, PTI reported.
“In some cases, the name of the husband is there and the wife is not there,” he added.
The counsel for the poll body opposed the petition, arguing that extensions had already been granted.
“The ECI is keeping a watch and wherever required, it is extending the time,” Live Law quoted the counsel as saying. “So it is not that if two weeks are given now, it cannot be extended further.”
The deadline for Kerala has already been extended twice, from December 4 to December 11 and then to December 18 and the draft voter list is now scheduled for publication on December 23.
In Uttar Pradesh, the revised enumeration period ends on December 26, with draft rolls due on December 31.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed petitioners to submit representations to the Election Commission and directed the poll body to take an appropriate decision after considering “all the ground realities and all the relevant factors,” Live Law reported.
The Supreme Court has listed the hearing on the constitutionality of the voter roll revision for January 6.
On December 11, the poll body extended the timelines for the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in six of the 12 states and Union Territories where the exercise is underway. This included Uttar Pradesh.
Kerala was among the other six states and Union Territories for which the poll panel did not extend the timelines.
The draft list in West Bengal was published on Tuesday and over 58 lakh voters have been removed from voter lists in the state as they either died, migrated outside the state or did not submit their enumeration forms, the poll body said.
In Bihar, where the revision was completed ahead of the Assembly polls in November, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded from the final electoral roll published on September 30.
Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll. Several petitioners also moved the Supreme Court against it.
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