Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam vs The Election Commissioner of India and Others

Sanjay Kishan Kaul, C.J.

The petitioner, an established political party, has filed the present petition arising from what may be called apprehensions that the final list of voters, which is drawn up, may contain duplicate voters who have registered simultaneously in different constituencies. The prayer, in fact, made is to appoint officials working in the Central Government offices to act as Electoral Registration Officers and also Booth Level Officers in all the constituencies within the State of Tamil Nadu to purify the entire voters list and assist in the preparation of final electoral roll.

Learned senior counsel for the petitioner fairly states that he is confining the claim in the petition and does not press the latter aspect, but only to ensure that there is proper verification and purity of process is maintained.

In support of the aforesaid contention, different electoral rolls have been filed showing name of the same voter in more than one constituency. It is the say of the learned senior counsel that there is a software available which can check this process and delete the duplication and he has handed over a copy of the software to the learned counsel for the Election Commission to use the same. We do believe that if the process achieves that result, the Election Commission may examine and utilise it.

The counter-affidavit is, of course, predicated on the original prayer, but we would like to cull out some of the averments qua the electoral process. The summary of the revision of rolls for the year 2016 is stated to have taken place and the updated list is released on 20.01.2016 under which 16,18,526 additions and 3,85,293 deletions were made. Representations are stated to have been received from various political parties and other quarters in respect of alleged discrepancies in the list and it is claimed that the respondents have taken up the task of purification of the electoral rolls arising from these representations. It is, thus, the submission of the learned Additional Solicitor General that this process is on and the petitioner is unnecessarily apprehensive. Comprehensive directions in this behalf are stated to have been issued during the Special Drive as set out in para 8 of the counter-affidavit which read as under:

De-duplication software shall be run on the final Electoral Rolls 2016 database in close supervision with the technical team of Election Commission of India, to generate lists of probable repeat / multiple entries within the same part and the repeat Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) details;

A list of deceased persons shall be prepared by compiling the information from the records of registered death maintained by concerned revenue department/local bodies'' authorities and a thorough check shall be made in the concerned Electoral Rolls to identify if name of any dead person finds place;

A comprehensive publicity campaign through all modes shall be organised to motivate the voters to voluntarily come forward to disclose any repeat/multiple entries in the Electoral Rolls and repeat EPIC number and to the relatives and neighbours of dead persons to apply for the deletion of such entries from Electoral Rolls;

Meeting with recognized political parties at state / district level should be held during the drive inviting their specific complaints which will be verified in a time bound manner. Further, the political parties should be requested to appoint Booth Level Agents (BLAs) for all polling stations and to assist the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) during special Electoral Roll purification drive in identification of repeat / multiple entries or dead electors at the polling station level;

The list of identified probable repeat / multiple entries, repeat EPIC numbers and dead persons'' entries at Polling Station level shall be made available to BLOs. BLAs of the recognised political parties can see that list with the BLO. A meeting of BLOs and BLAs should be held for exchange of relevant information;

The lists of probable repeated / multiple entries, repeat EPIC numbers and dead voters as generated above shall be verified by concerned BLOs. The date of verification should be announced in advance with appropriate publicity using all methods;

The Polling Station wise lists of repeated / multiple entries, repeat EPIC numbers and dead voters shall be read over in the meeting of the concerned Wards or Resident Welfare Associations or the Gram Panchayat / Urban local body unit at the Polling Stations in the presence of members of Booth Level Awareness Groups (BAGs) on a prefixed date. A proper record / minutes of such meetings should be kept and necessary action should be taken by the EROs to redress the issues;

If any complaint from political parties or any other stake holders is received then after taking necessary action, a suitable reply must be given to them and a proper record of the complaints received and reply given should be mentioned;

A copy of the lists or probable repeat / multiple entries, repeat EPIC numbers and dead persons'' entries in the Electoral rolls shall be prominently displayed on the websites of Chief Electoral Officer and the District Election Officers and the URL/web link to be informed in writing to the political parties and their valuable inputs to be invited. A media briefing will also be done at the State and District levels in this respect;

Those entries, which after verification are found to be true repeat / multiple entries or belonging to verified dead persons may be deleted suo motu under section 22 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, by the concerned ERO / AERO after following the due procedure and instruction of the Election Commission. The repeat EPIC numbers cases to be corrected after due verification by cancelling the EPIC number if it belongs to same voter and by issuing new EPIC number to replace the repeat EPIC number if the repeat EPIC pertains to different voters by the Electoral Registration Officer himself under the strict oversight of District Election Officer; and

All correction / deletion shall be made strictly in accordance with statutory provisions ready with ECI instructions. The DEO, ERO, AEROs and Supervisors shall randomly conduct a field super check of the verified true repeated / multiple entries and verified dead persons'' entries to ensure that any genuine Electoral Roll must not be delete.''''

The aforesaid drive is stated to have been advertised and meetings have been conducted with representatives of all recognised political parties explaining the modalities of the special drive.

The petitioner is stated to have given a list of 2,37,892 cases which have been fully digitized and acted upon. Deletions have been proposed of dead entries based on the District Death Register, Multiple / Repeated entries and EPIC entries which are repeated.

Learned Additional Solicitor General has also drawn our attention to the averments in the counter-affidavit that wherever they have found deficiencies in the process of such verification, they have even issued show cause notices as set out in para 19 of the counter-affidavit. The meetings are also being held between Booth Level Officers and Booth Level Agents, but this has not been so far possible in all Districts due to the strike of Government employees and therefore, some part of the task is still on.

In para 22 of the counter-affidavit, there is a specific denial of the suo motu deletions of 3.70 lakhs published in newspapers based on a release. It has been stated that no such release was made. The representations of the petitioner made on 12.02.2016, 15.02.2016 and 26.02.2016 are acknowledged, which are being processed.

In respect of the schedule of elections, it is stated that this process of additions and deletions is a continuous one, which goes on till the last date of withdrawal of the candidate. However, the respondents propose to complete the exercise by 19.04.2016, i.e. 10 days before the statutory last date. Before the poll, a list of Absent, Shifted and Dead (ASD) electors would be prepared and sent to the respective polling stations and all such identified persons till five days before the poll are brought to the list. Even on the polling day, agents of all candidates are present, who can challenge and verify the genuineness of the voters and to prevent impersonation at the time of poll, special measures are taken in pursuance to the circular of the Election Commission of India dated 04.04.2014, which are as under:

i. List of ASD voters should be prepared polling station wise and it should be ensured that each Presiding Officer is provided with a separate list of Absentee, Shifted and Dead electors (ASD List).

ii. On the day of poll, every elector, whose name appears in such a list, shall have to produce Electors Photo Identity Card for his / her identification or any one of the alternative photo identity documents permitted by the Commission. The Presiding Officer shall verify the identification documents personally and the details should be properly registered by the Polling Officer concerned in the register of voters in Form 17A.

iii. The First Polling Officer shall inform the Polling Agents about the ASD elector who has come to vote by reading out his / her name loudly.

iv. Thumb impression of such electors shall also be obtained in addition to signature against the column of ''''signature/ thumb impression'''' of Register of Voters (Form 17A). The thumb impression shall be in addition to the signature even in the case of an elector who is a literate and can sign.

v. A declaration shall also be obtained from the ASD electors in the prescribed format.

vi. Presiding Officer shall maintain a record and give a certificate at the end of the poll (to be kept with Form 17A for scrutiny) that so many electors from the ASD List were allowed to vote after proper scrutiny.

vii. If videography/photography is being done in the Polling Station, such electors shall be photographed and their record kep.

viii.Micro Observers, who are present, should ensure that these instructions with regard to Absentee, Shifted and Dead electors are meticulously followed and make a specific mention about this in their report.

ix. The Presiding Officer shall be briefed specially about these procedures to be followed in polling stations for electors who are in the list of Absentee, Shifted and Dead electors.''''

Learned Additional Solicitor General submits before us that though best care would be taken, there is no 100% method they have in such a large exercise, but then, even if a name of a voter appears in more than one constituency, he/she is entitled to vote only once and once the ink is on the finger, the same voter cannot go to the other constituency. The apprehension expressed by the learned senior counsel for the petitioner is that there are apparently chemical processes through which this ink can be removed by rubbing the chemical on the finger before hand. But then, for such detected duplicate voting, there are consequences in terms of criminal prosecution. All that we would like to say in this behalf is that the Election Commission can look into this aspect whether any directions are necessary qua the same. We may take note of the submission of the learned senior counsel for the petitioner that he is satisfied if the Election Commission follows its own notification qua detection of such voters vide notification dated 31.07.2015.

It is assured by the learned Additional Solicitor General that action is already being taken and will be taken on the representations so far received from the petitioner.

We want to make it clear that though the jurisdiction of the Court over the Election Commission exists for furtherance of election process, it is not the function of the Court to interfere with the working of the Election Commission which is an independent body with best reputation to carry out the electoral process fairly. We have no doubt that every endeavour will be made by the Election Commission to uphold its own reputation and see to it that a fair and transparent elections are held in Tamil Nadu. We are emphasizing here that we would not like to encourage repeated monitoring of the electoral process on aspects which are to be dealt with by the Election Commission unless some violation of any law is specifically pointed out to us. This is also a caution for other litigants who may be contemplating filing of petitions, as we are told that the history is of large number of petitions being filed in this behalf to the extent that this Court has issued a notification that all matters relating to the election process should be listed only before the First Bench as in the past.

We close the proceedings in the aforesaid terms. No costs. W.M.P. No.6657 of 2016 also stands closed.