A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Gujarat High Court seeking a direction to the Election Commission (EC) and state's chief electoral officer to ensure inclusion of names of persons in the electoral roll who have completed the formalities for registration as a voter, as well as of those whose names have been deleted from the voters list of their relevant constituencies.
The petitioner, advocate KR Koshti, has claimed before the court that there are more than 1.25 lakh voters awaiting registration of their names in the electoral rolls in Ahmedabad city alone. Koshti claimed that EC announced the general elections on March 10 and in its announcement clarified that the process of continuous updation of electoral rolls will continue till the last date of filing nominations, which is April 4.
Despite the EC's announcement fixing April 4 as the last date for updation of electoral roll in the state, there are several cases wherein the registration of voters has not been carried out. The petitioner also claimed that several persons despite multiple attempts could not get their names included in the voters list due to issues at the end of government officials.
When the PIL came up for hearing on Wednesday, the division bench of Acting Chief Justice AS Dave and Justice Biren Vaishnav directed the petitioner to serve a copy of the petition to the election commission. Further hearing in the case has been scheduled on Thursday by the division bench.