General Elections 2024: Plea In Kerala High Court Alleges Double Entries In Final Voter's List Of Attingal Constituency

Ahead of the 2024 General Elections, the Chief Election Agent of MP Adoor Prakash has moved the Kerala High Court alleging double entries in the final voters list at the Attingal Parliamentary Constituency. The plea asked for technology to be deployed to identify and remove double entries in the voter's list.

Justice Shoba Annamma Eapen heard the matter.

The plea was moved by the Chief Election Agent of Adoor Prakash, MP, who is the Congress-I candidate nominated to contest from Attingal Parliamentary Constituency in the polling scheduled to be held on 26.04.2024.

The petitioner submitted that the final voter's list prepared in the Attingal Parliamentary Constituency contains 1,61,237 double entries out of 13,93,134 voters.

The petitioner stated that Section 18 of the Peoples of Representation Act specifically reads that “no persons to be registered more than once in any constituency. No person shall be entitled to be registered in the electoral roll for any constituency more than once”.

The plea seeks a writ of mandamus to be issued to identify double entries with the use of software to ensure that double-entry voters are not allowed to cast their votes in more than one place as mandated under the provisions of the Representation of People Act.

The petitioner submits that they had preferred complaints regarding the same before the Election Commission of India, the Chief Electoral Officer and was brought to the notice of the officials including the Electoral Registration Officer to no avail. They added that the existence of the double entries was confirmed in a reply under the RTI Act.

The plea argued that although the Election Commission is responsible for the preparation and finalization of the voter's list for the elections, it is often the case that the employees of the State Government are deputed on duty independence in the process of preparation of the voter's list is only duty.

The plea alleges that the officers were biased due to their political affiliation which defeats the concept of a fair election and sought a direction to replace these officers with Central Government officials.

 The court directed the counsel to get instructions. The matter has been posted for the 19th of April

The petition is moved by Senior Advocate George Poonthottam, Advocates Nisha George, A.L.Navaneeth Krishnan, Sidharth.R.Wariyar, Kavya Varma M. M., Anshin K.K.

Case Title: Varkala Kahar v. The Election Commission of India and Ors.

Case Number: WP(C) No. 16024 of 2024