Cong used fake papers on duplicate voters, EC tells SC

The Election Commission on Thursday claimed before the Supreme Court that attempts were being made to malign the poll panel and get favourable order by fabricating the documents in a case filed by Congress leader Kamal Nath with regard to Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections.

The top court, however, took strong exception over the claims of the poll panel and warned that it may summon the company which has reportedly made public the data of voters and pointed out the duplication.

The Congress leader said that there is nothing wrong in the submission of the documents and the data of duplicate voters, as pointed out by a private company, has been given to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) O P Rawat.

A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan asked senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for the ECI, to verify from Rawat whether such documents were given to him or were directly given in the court.

During the hearing, Singh said, "It is something serious which I want to point out to the court and the act is covered under section 193 of IPC (punishment for false evidence). Somebody should be seriously hauled up for this."

He submitted some papers with regard to voters in Madhya Pradesh and said that an impression was given based on fabricated documents that there were bogus voters.

"Some private company called 'politics.in' has published the data of voters with pictures which the ECI does not do. The petitioner herein has submitted the data relying on such fabricated documents to get a favourable order and malign the Election Commission of India," Singh said.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Kamal Nath, said that there is nothing wrong as the data was in the public domain and the petitioner has submitted it to Rawat as well.

The court put the matter for further consideration on October 8.