SC seeks ECI response on Rahul Gandhi’s plea against SIR, flags conduct of one petitioner
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a plea filed by Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and other INDIA bloc leaders challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, while indicating that it would examine the conduct of one of the petitioners at the next hearing.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi directed that the petition be tagged with other matters already pending before the apex court challenging the validity of the SIR exercise in various states.
“We are issuing notice and tagging it with the matters already pending,” the CJI Kant-led Bench said, adding that someone should accept notice on behalf of the ECI or the petitioners should serve the respondents.
The Supreme Court also made it clear that it would seek an explanation from one of the petitioners regarding his conduct.
However, the CJI Surya Kant-led Bench did not identify the petitioner concerned at this stage.
“We would like to ask one of the petitioners about his conduct on the next date of hearing,” the top court observed, adding that the notice concerning the petitioner would be entertained provisionally, subject to his explaining his conduct.
The plea was filed on October 12 by Rahul Gandhi and 12 other INDIA bloc leaders, alleging large-scale voter deletions and irregularities in the SIR exercise. Besides Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, the petitioners include Trinamool Congress leader Saugata Roy, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and other INDIA bloc leaders.
The respondents include the ECI, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.
The plea was filed against the backdrop of an Opposition march to the Supreme Court to protest alleged electoral irregularities and the SIR exercise.
Meanwhile, a Supreme Court lawyer has approached CJI Surya Kant seeking consideration of suo motu criminal contempt proceedings over a now-deleted social media post by Congress Kerala targeting the CJI and the Opposition’s protest march to the apex court.
The advocate, Vineet Jindal, has also sought an examination of the reported demonstration at the Supreme Court registry during the filing of the petition by Rahul Gandhi and other INDIA bloc leaders to ascertain whether any restricted area was entered without authorisation, security instructions were violated or the functioning of the apex court was obstructed.
Jindal urged the preservation and examination of relevant CCTV footage, access-control logs, security deployment records and other evidence before any conclusion is drawn.
The issue had also been raised before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, when senior advocate Gaurav Bhatia mentioned the matter before CJI Surya Kant. When the CJI asked whether the matter was in the mentioning list, Bhatia replied in the negative. “Just mention tomorrow,” the CJI said.