Election Commission of India informed the Telangana High Court on Tuesday (October 13) that it had issued a response to the voter in the ongoing SIR in the State, who claimed that after he went for a hearing pursuant to a notice and submitted documents the poll body had thereafter not informed of further action. 

With respect to another voter who claimed that no notice was issued to him over exclusion from the voter roll, the court said that that he had filed a Form 6 application for inclusion of name which has been processed and the final list of voters will be out on November 9. 

The court was hearing a plea challenging notices issued by the ECI against electors over "minor discrepancies" in their enumeration forms by deploying an automated data-matching platform for identifying, flagging and initiating proceedings against electors.

Previously the court had sought Election Commission of India's response on why a voter was excluded from the electoral roll without being issued a notice during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process undertaken in the State. It had also sought to know what action had been taken in respect of another voter, after he submitted his response to the notice issued to him.

At the outset Senior Advocate L Ravichander appearing for the petitioners, submitted before a division bench of Acting Chief Justice P Sam Koshy and Justice Narsing Rao Nandikonda that a PIL had also been filed on the larger issue and sought that present petition and the PIL be taken up and heard together. 

The court meanwhile orally said that if the respondent authorities can resolve the grievance of the petitioners then the PIL can be taken up on its own. The court further orally said that the scope of consideration of PIL would be entirely different from scope of consideration of aggrieved person in a writ petition. 

Meanwhile the counsel appearing for the ECI said that petitioner no. 1 had made a request that his name was not included in the draft roll and had made a representation. He said that there was a response to the representation with a detailed instructions to the petitioner on September 1. 

"That response has been filed. It might be they (petitioners) received this response after (filing of writ petition)," the ECI's counsel said. At this stage the petitioners' counsel sought time to seek instructions and sought that the matter be listed tomorrow. 

ECI's counsel further said as petitioner no. 1's name was not included in the list, he filed a Form 6 application for inclusion of name, which has been processed.

"Form 6 given, processed. List will come out at the final...It is under consideration...if form 6 is accepted it will be published in final list. If not accepted, there will be a reasoned order to it," he said. He said that petitioner no.1's name was not in the draft list as it was not their in the original roll also. 

As far as petitioner no. 2 was concerned, ECI's counsel said, his name is already in the draft list of voters. The discrepancy with respect to which notices are given is with regard to those persons whose names are already in the draft list, the counsel explained. 

He said that petitioner no.2's father's name had a mismatch and thus he was given a notice for giving an explanation.

"There was a hearing conducted. ECI has said that as long as you are accepting their objections and not removing them from list...if you are rejecting then you have to pass a reasoned order. This was communicated on September 1 in a reply. Present writ petition seems to be filed in September. I don't know whether this reply has been received by petitioners or not," the counsel said adding that the final list will be published on November 9.

The court thereafter listed the matter on October 15, permitting the petitioners' counsel to verify the instructions passed down by the counsel for ECI. 

The plea claims that the process is without the authority of law, without proper verification of the relevant physical records, without due application of mind by the Electoral Registration Officers (ERO), and without disclosing the particulars, methodology and functioning of such platform named ECINet. / ERONET in the public domain.