Panaji: The Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday adjourned the hearing on a writ petition filed by a local family alleging that the Election Commission of India (ECI) had deleted their names from the electoral roll, after the poll panel pointed out that the Supreme Court is already seized of petitions challenging the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Valmiki Menezes and Justice Amit Jamsandekar postponed the hearing to next Tuesday after Advocate Gaurish Agni, representing the Election Commission of India, argued that since the Supreme Court is seized of the SIR issue, including the deletion of voters from the draft roll, any orders passed by the apex court could have a bearing on the matter being heard by the High Court in Goa.
The court adjourned the hearing until next Tuesday.
Talking to reporters outside the court, Advocate Agni said that the ECI had placed before the High Court Bench “some orders of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and orders passed by three or four other High Courts.”
“The Supreme Court has issued directions in some SIR petitions pending before it that wherever there is a challenge to the SIR and deletion of names, if a petition is presented before a High Court, ideally the hearing should be deferred,” he said.
Agni said that similar orders have also been passed by the Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Kerala High Courts.
“Therefore, my argument before the court today was that since the Hon’ble Supreme Court is seized of the SIR issue, including the issue of deletion of voters from the draft roll, the orders that may be passed by the Supreme Court could have some bearing on this matter,” he said.
“In this case as well, there is deletion from the draft roll and a consequential rejection of Form 8,” Agni added.
Agni said that the Bench was of the opinion that the Supreme Court’s orders may not have a direct bearing on the matter and that it may be in a position to hear the case further.
“However, our stand was that the Supreme Court’s orders will have a bearing on what is happening in this matter,” he said.
The ECI, he said, requested that the matter be kept for next week, as the case before the Supreme Court is likely to be listed on October 8.
“I also requested that the senior advocates who have appeared in this matter before the Bombay High Court as well as the Supreme Court be allowed to address this Bench on these issues,” Agni said.
He said that, considering all these aspects, the court has kept the matter for further hearing and no further orders were passed on Tuesday.
Advocate Agni said that the SIR is not under challenge in this petition, the guidelines are not under challenge, and the forms per se are also not under challenge. What is under challenge is the rejection of Form 8.
“Our argument is that Form 8 cannot be looked at in isolation. The rejection of Form 8 is because of something that precedes Form 8 — namely, the enumeration form not being submitted, which results in deletion of the name from the draft roll. Once a person is deleted from the draft roll, questions arise as to what happens to Forms 6, 7 and 8,” he said.
Agni said that, therefore, the ECI’s argument is that Form 8 has to be read along with the process that takes place prior to its submission.
“We have accordingly requested that the matter be adjourned so that detailed arguments can be advanced and, if any orders are passed by the Supreme Court, those orders can also be placed before this court,” he said.
The petitioners, Paresh Salgaonkar and his family, residents of the St Cruz Assembly constituency, had filed a writ petition before the High Court challenging the deletion of their names from the voter list during the SIR.
