Chennai: The Madras High Court has dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), while levying costs of Rs one lakh, for seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to clarify its position over Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of large-scale voter list manipulation during the 2024 general elections.
The PIL was filed by advocate V.Venkata Sivakumar, and the same was dismissed by the HC bench comprising Chief Justice M.M. Shrivatsava and Justice G. Arul Murugan.
The court disposed of the writ petition with costs of Rs 1,00,000, payable to the Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority. It also stated that the Election Commission was free to take its own decisions on the issues raised.
The PIL over alleged voter list fraud was filed following the Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition (LoP), Rahul Gandhi's special PowerPoint presentation some time ago, attacking the Election Commission for ‘allowing’ vote theft during the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. He accused the poll body of adding fake voters to the electoral rolls, particularly in Karnataka and Maharashtra, to benefit the ruling party.
The petitioner sought the court’s directions to the Election Commission to clarify its position on Rahul’s charges and also demanded that it should be put in the public domain.
In his prayer, the petitioner said, “The court should direct the respondent to produce before this court and make available in the public domain the relevant electoral roll data for all constituencies in machine-readable format, together with a detailed status report of all actions, inquiries, audits, and measures undertaken in response to these allegations, so as to uphold transparency, public confidence, and the constitutional mandate of free and fair elections as per Articles 324, 14, 19(1)(a) of our Constitution.”
Frowning upon the misconceived petition, the court said that the plea lacked concrete material and was based only on allegations and counter-allegations made on certain platforms.
It held that, in its present form, the petition was vague and devoid of material details and particulars and further noted that no such direction to “clarify its position” could be issued to the Election Commission.
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