High Court seeks status of deleting bogus votes in the electoral rol

New Delhi, Mar 13 (UNI) Delhi High Court has directed the Election Comission(EC) and the state's Chief Electoral Officer to reply what action they have taken to delete the names of bogus voters in the electoral list.

Justice Gita Mittal has directed the EC to reply by September 4 whether the names of those persons who were deported from India have been removed from the voters list and what steps are being taken by them to make fresh electoral lists, are free of illegal of duplicate voters.

A public interest petition (PIL) was filed by advocate Ashok Kashyap in 2003, contending that the Election commission has failed to carry out its legal, statutory and constitutional obligations and till now, been unable to delete about five lakh bogus and duplicate votes from the voters list.

The problem of large scale "illegal immigration "in India, particularly by Bangladeshis, Afghanis and Pakistanis whose names are included in the voters list has yet to be dealt with Mr Kashyap said.

Though The Foreigner Residents Registeration Office (FRRO) has filed an affidavit in the court stating that almost 35,000 foreigners have been deported from the year 1991 till 2007 but it is not clear whether their names have been deleted in the voters list or not yet, the petitioner said.

In 2003, the Election Comission had said that there are about five lakhs voters in the capital's voter list which are not of Indian origin but so far no steps have been taken to remove them from the electoral rolls, it added.

UNI SNG VD RAI1844