The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a petition filed by a person whose name was deleted from the electoral rolls of Tamil Nadu after the special intensive revision exercise, reported Live Law.
The petitioner, C Geetha, was seeking to contest the upcoming Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu as an Independent candidate from the Uthangarai and Bargur Assembly constituencies.
After the Election Commission stated that the petition had been filed “too late”, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi refused to entertain the matter.
Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu will take place on April 23. Votes will be counted on May 4.
On February 23, the poll panel stated that more than 74 lakh persons were removed from the final voter list of Tamil Nadu as part of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.
The final list showed that the state has 5.6 crore voters.
Tamil Nadu had 6.4 crore electors when the exercise began on October 27. In December, when the draft rolls were published, the names of 97.3 lakh persons were removed.
According to the Election Commission, 27.5 lakh eligible voters were added to the list during the claims and objections period, which concluded on January 30. A total of 4.2 lakh names were deleted during this phase.
In her petition, Geetha said that she got to know her name had been deleted from the electoral rolls only on April 2, when she sought to file her nomination papers, reported Live Law.
Geetha’s counsel, advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, told the court that her name had been on the electoral rolls since 2007 and that she held a passport and Aadhaar card as proof of eligibility.
Her name being deleted from the voter rolls was unjustified, added Sankaranarayanan.
However, the Election Commission submitted that the request had been made “too late”.
Sankaranarayanan responded: “Passport is proof of citizenship…you should automatically add everybody who has a passport. I did not even receive a single notice. Forget my nomination, I am saying at least my right to vote should be there.”
The petition filed by Geetha had challenged an April 7 order of the Madras High Court that had rejected her request to be added to the electoral rolls.
Before the High Court, the poll panel had submitted that the petitioner had not filed her objection within the timeline of the voter roll revision process, reported Live Law.
The High Court then said Geetha should have been “vigilant” and exercised her rights within the timeline set by the Election Commission.
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