PANAJI
Questions over deleted names from the electoral rolls took a technical turn before the High Court of Bombay at Goa on Wednesday, with the Bench calling the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) to court to explain how the deletions were processed and whether the software allowed the officer to exercise independent judgement. The Court has been hearing arguments in a petition filed by Paresh Salgaonkar and family from St Cruz challenging non-inclusion of their names in the electoral rolls. The Division Bench of Justice Valmiki Menezes and Justice Amit Jamsandekar sought to know the functioning of the electoral rolls software after observing that the system appeared to leave EROs with little scope to exercise their independent judgement while processing voters’ names.
“We are coming across stereotype orders where the system did not allow an entry to be made and therefore rejected it...As a result, the ERO did not apply his mind. The ERO would say that he had no choice because the system required him to reject it, even though he wanted to apply his mind but could not do so because of the system,” the Bench said. The ERO was accordingly directed to remain present during the hearing, at 2.30 pm. During the afternoon’s hearing, the ERO clarified that there was no intention on the part of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to delete the name of any particular person. “Names of persons found ineligible were deleted in accordance with the prescribed procedure... It was not a case of any individual being victimised or of an attempt to remove a particular person’s name,” the officer said, stressing that the deletions were not intentional. The procedure was explained to the Bench to bring clarity on the manner in which the electoral rolls had been processed.
The Bench, however, observed that an ERO must at all times have access to the software to open it and enter names in the electoral rolls in accordance with orders passed by the officer. The ECI meanwhile admitted that, at least between the draft and final electoral rolls, there should have been an option to make such a correction. “Correction should have been made. I admit that…” the ECI said.
