Senior Advocate Arvind Datar on Thursday mentioned a petition challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Maharashtra before the Supreme Court, seeking its tagging with the pending matter concerning Rahul Gandhi and the Election Commission of India. The bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi has issued notice and declined tagging for now.
Mr Datar submitted that Maharashtra had approximately 9.79 crore voters, of whom around 2 crore had been struck off the electoral rolls and another 1.22 crore were flagged for logical discrepancies.
“
“In Maharashtra what has happened is, out of 9.79 crore voters, 2 crores are struck off, 1.22 crores are under logical discrepancy. In certain parts of Mumbai and Pune, 40.6% of the voters are off the list. That is the staggering statistics in Maharashtra, which I have got.”
He further submitted that in certain parts of Mumbai and Pune, 40.6% of voters were missing from the electoral rolls. He requested that his petition be taken up alongside the connected SIR matters in filed by Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders.
Chief Justice of India, however, indicated that the Court would issue notice in the petition and provide dasti notice for service on the respondents.
Responding to a request to tag the petition with the other SIR matters, the CJI indicated that the Court would examine the issues on a state-specific basis. “We would like to concentrate on Maharashtra. In Delhi matters, we would like to concentrate on Delhi,” the CJI observed.
The Court did not order the Maharashtra petition to be tagged with the Rahul Gandhi–ECI matter. It indicated that notice would be issued and emphasised a state-specific approach to the SIR challenges.