ECI summoned by Supreme Court over denial of voting rights in Assam

March 8: The Supreme Court has asked the Secretary of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to appear before it on 12 March, 2019 in connection with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) alleging that certain categories of people in Assam have been deprived of voting rights ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

The petition came up for hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justice AK Nazeer and Justice Sanjiv Khanna. The petition was filed by two residents from Assam–Gopal Seth and Susanta Sen.

In the PIL, mention was made of 5 categories of people in Assam who were robbed of their voting rights:

1. The PIL stated that there were people whose names were not included in the complete draft NRC, but they subsequently filed claims for inclusion of their names in it. They had voted in the earlier Lok Sabha elections and were waiting for inclusion of their names.
2. The petitioners mentioned in the PIL that a category of persons whose names were deleted from the voter list were some whose names appeared in the draft NRC published on July 30, 2018.
3. In the next category, mention was made of people who have been declared as foreigners by the Foreigners’ Tribunal as well as by the Gauhati High Court but the court’s order was stayed by the Supreme Court.
4. Again, there are persons whose names have not been included in the draft NRC but the names of their family members are present and who have filed claims for inclusion of their names.
5. The next category of people were those who were declared foreigners by Foreigners’ Tribunal and such declarations were set aside by the apex court. But their names were deleted from the voters list upon the order of the foreigners’ tribunal.  It is in this context that the apex court on Friday sought the personal appearance of the Secretary of the Election Commission of India as no one appeared to represent the Election Commission despite a notice was issued on 1 February, 2019.