Lok Satta, having sucessfully conduted a pilot project POST OFFICES as Nodal Agency & having failed to convince govt on ways to clean up & set up friendly robust system of "VOTER ROLL" management NOW goes to Supreme Court.
Surendra Srivastava
Loksatta Communication
SYNOPSIS
By this present Writ Petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, the Petitioners are seeking to challenge the manner in which electoral rolls have been prepared and maintained by the election Commission of India, and the State Election Commissions resulting in a large section of the electorates have repeatedly been denied the right to exercise their franchise in elections thus adversely affecting full functional and effective democracy as per constitutional scheme of arrangement particularly in FPTP(First Past The Post) system of elections, where margins of victory in most cases in very marginal
Some of the errors noted are:
1- MISSING NAMES DUE TO NON REGISTRATION BECAUSE OF CUMBERSOME & UNWELCOMING PROCESS
2- ILLEGAL / WRONGFUL DELETIONS
3- FALSE / MULTIPLE ENTRIES
4- TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
5- IMPROPER/ INCOMPLETET INCORPORATION OF DETAILS
The present Petition is founded on the Constitutional scheme of arrangement that full functional and effective democracy requires free and fair elections be at gram panchayat level or at municipal corporation level or be at legislative assembly/council level or be at parliament level. The correct, error free and real time voter rolls for each of these elections is the first step to conduct free and fair elections. The fundamental philosophy reflected in the aforesaid understanding is that unless all eligible voters are allowed to participate by adopting “friendly”, “non repulsive” and “easy accessible” process and system of ‘voter registration’, ‘change of address/constituency due to change in work place or marriage and therefore change of place of residence’, ‘correction of voters data as and when required’, the citizen will be demotivated to not only NOT participate in electoral process but not even get motivated to register himself/herself as a voter
In view of faulty method of preparation and revision of electoral rolls, a large section of the electorates have repeatedly been denied the right to exercise their franchise in elections held in to various State assemblies as well in the parliamentary election and therefore the petitioners by this present petition seeking following reliefs among others:
c) Issue an appropriate Writ, Order or Direction to frame appropriate guidelines and/or form an Expert Committee comprising of such persons having adequate knowledge and expertise as regards the Political and Election Process to formulate detailed Policy, Framework and Mechanism of preparation and maintenance of the Voter Roll and timely updation revision and modification of the same to ensure fair conduct of elections at the Local, State and National Level and to protect and preserve the democratic franchise of the country;
e) Issue a Writ of Mandamus or any other appropriate Writ, Order or Direction to direct the Election Commission of India(Respondent No. 2) and the Various State Election Commissions (Respondent Nos. 39 to 72) to appoint Postal Offices as Nodal Agencies for the purpose of collecting the data, ensuring its authenticity, updating and rectifying the Voter Roll and undertaking registration of Fresh Eligible Voters.
Please see sample news report. Demotivated/Temporary staff neither does their school work not voter roll duty. Both JOB suffers.
20-month poll duty ordeal ends for Ghatkopar school staffers
Surendra Srivastava
Base Unit-4, Bycula Service Industries Premises,
Dadoji Konddeo Rd, Bycula (East) Mumbai 400027