HC notice to EC over missing names in electoral rolls

The High Court of Karnataka on Friday issued an emergent notice to the Election Commission over the non-enrollment of names in the electoral rolls.

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice H G Ramesh and Justice P S Dinesh Kumar was hearing a petition filed by the Whitefield Rising Trust challenging the missing names of applicants in the voters' list for the upcoming Assembly polls.

The petitioner said thousands of Mahadevpura residents had applied online get registered in the voters'list through the online portal (www. voterreg.kar.nic.in), which is under the supervision of the BBMP. However, the BBMP has declared their names to be missing. This has caused a serious prejudice in a large section of citizens of Whitefield, Mahadevpura Assembly Constituency, the petitioner said.

The bench observed that the petition was in the true sense a public interest litigation and that the matter would be taken into consideration with immediate effect.

It also observed that the consequence would benefit not only Mahadevpura residents but the entire state.

The petitioner also said that many residents had submitted the hard copy of filled applications at the election offices in Whitefield and Mahadevpura. But over 2,000 applications have not been processed.

The petitioner sought the court to direct the authorities to set up an effective mechanism to process all the applications.

The bench also issued notices to the government and the Palike and adjourned the matter to January 22.