The Delhi High Court, on Wednesday, directed the Election Commission to look into duplicate voter entries in the voter list of Delhi. The direction comes in the wake of a petition by Rashtrawadi Aadarsh Mahasangh which alleged that millions of duplicate voters had been included in the voter list, hence possibly jeopardising the integrity of the electoral process.
The bench, headed by Acting Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru, observed that such issues usually crop up before elections. The Court also requested the Election Commission to consider technological solutions to avoid duplicate entries in future electoral rolls.
The petitioner’s lawyer pointed out that the Delhi Assembly elections would conclude before the Election Commission could resolve the issue. The Court also admitted that even though revision of electoral rolls are part of the established process, it was impossible to carry on such changes near the elections.
Advocate Sidhant Kumar from the Election Commission for the respondent arguing that this plea lacked proper and specific instances of duplication in voters’ list; also reminded everyone that the work of reworking the rolls is already started; also informed everybody that the Supreme Court has earlier ruled on this point.
The Court noted the petitioner’s argument that the voter list was replete with duplicate entries and nothing had been done to eliminate those. The petitioner further proposed that two technological devices—Photo Similar Entries (PSE) and Demographic Similar Entries (DSE)—be adopted to delete the duplicate entries. The Election Commission countered by saying that it had already introduced the two technological devices and the necessary procedure to revise the electoral rolls had been carried out, rendering the concerns of the petition moot.
Considering the above, the Court ordered disposal of the petition but asked the Election Commission to look into the matter at the right time.
The petition filed by Rashtrawadi Aadarsh Mahasangh claimed that duplicate voter entries in Delhi’s voter list undermined the democratic process and violated the principle of “one citizen, one vote.” It further argued that state authorities had failed to address the issue, allowing duplicate entries to proliferate. The petition also highlighted the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, adopted by the Election Commission, to swiftly identify and remove duplicate entries from the electoral rolls.
With inputs from ANI.