Don’t bombard EC with petitions during elections, says court

The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy noted that there was no contempt of court prima facie. However, as the petitioner claimed that a number of poll workers could be deprived of their right to vote, a copy of the petition should be forwarded to the Election Commission, it said, adding that the matter would be taken up on March 29.

The petitioner claimed that though the court had directed issuing prefilled postal ballots forms, almost 20,000 postal ballots were rejected in consecutive elections due to the failure of many District Election Officers (DEOs) to issue pre-filled Form 12. During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 24,912 out of the 2.23 lakh postal ballots were rejected because of the absence of gazetted officer’s sign in the ballot, the petitioner said.

Poor database was contributing to such largescale rejection of postal ballots given to those on election duty, the petitioner alleged, adding that the EC was in contempt of failing to reduce the rejection of such a huge number of ballots. It was also submitted that an eligible voter on election duty residing in another district would not get the pre-filled postal ballots unless the DEO send their details to their native DEO.