The Supreme Court has issued notices to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and others on a plea filed by Opposition leaders led by Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and the INDIA bloc, challenging the poll panel’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and alleged voter deletions.
The top court has sought responses from the ECI, CEC Gyanesh Kumar, and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi on the plea filed by Gandhi and others.
A bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notices to Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, and others on a plea against the march to the apex court over alleged SIR irregularities.
“We would like to ask one of the petitioners about his conduct on the next date of hearing,” said the CJI while issuing notice in the plea of Rahul Gandhi’s and other opposition leaders.
During the hearing, some lawyers referred to the Congress leader’s march to the apex court over the alleged irregularities in SIR.
“Nobody can browbeat the judiciary. We are not sitting in ivory towers,” the bench observed.
The top court also issued notices to the Centre and others on various pleas related to the Election Commission filed by leaders like Asaduddin Owaisi.
The petition filed challenges the manner in which the Election Commission has taken decisions relating to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
This comes after LoP Gandhi and several other opposition leaders had marched to the apex court to file the petition related to SIR on Monday. The petitioners include Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav, RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule, and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut among others.
Delhi has been witnessing several protests demanding the resignation of the CEC Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the SIR.