New Delhi. The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Election Commission of the country and other concerned parties on a petition and sought their response. The petition was presented by Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and other prominent opposition leaders. In this, the process of ‘Special Intensive Revision’ (SIR) of voter lists by the Commission and the manner in which the names of voters are removed from the list have been challenged. Apart from the Election Commission, the Supreme Court has asked Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi to present their stand on this entire matter.
The court expressed displeasure over the behavior of the petitioner
During the hearing, the court expressed serious dissatisfaction over the conduct of one of the 13 petitioners challenging the process of voter list revision. The Chief Justice, while directing the issue of notice on the petition, clearly said that the court will seek answers from the concerned petitioner regarding his such conduct.
Any kind of pressure on the court is not possible
During the hearing of the case, the issue of the foot march taken out by the opposition leaders to the Supreme Court in protest against the revision work of the Election Commission also came up. On this the CJI said in strong words that the judiciary cannot be brought under pressure by any means or method. When senior lawyer Gaurav Bhatia mentioned the political demonstration and lawyers’ memorandum, CJI Surya Kant said that the court is fully aware of the activities happening around and it does not remain isolated from anyone. He said that such fruitless efforts do not affect the functioning of the court. Meanwhile, on similar petitions filed by other leaders including Asaduddin Owaisi, notices were given to the Central Government and other parties and instructions were issued to hear all the cases together.
Prominent opposition faces who filed the petition
The leaders who filed this petition include Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge, Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) MP Supriya Sule and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Sanjay Raut. The petition, submitted to the court on October 12, was formally registered by the registry on October 13 after initial technical deficiencies were rectified.
