The Madras High Court dismissed a PIL asking the Election Commission to clarify Rahul Gandhi’s allegation of voter list manipulation. The court imposed a Rs 1 lakh cost, calling the plea a publicity-driven move.
The Madras High Court on Tuesday, September 9, dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that had questioned the Election Commission of India (ECI) over allegations made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi about manipulation of the voters’ list.
The case was heard by the first bench consisting of Chief Justice M M Shrivatsava and Justice G Arul Murugan.
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Advocate V Venkata Sivakumar, who filed the petition, had asked the court to direct the Election Commission to clarify its position on the issue raised by Rahul Gandhi.
In his plea, the petitioner also wanted the court to order the Election Commission to share electoral roll data for all constituencies in a “machine readable format” and to release it in the public domain.
He further demanded that the Commission produce a
“detailed status report of all actions’ inquiries, audits, and measures undertaken in response to these allegations, so as to uphold transparency, public confidence, and the constitutional mandate of free and fair elections.”
However, the bench did not agree with the petitioner. While dismissing the case, the judges noted that
“a petition relating to voters list was pending before the Supreme Court.”
They observed that the present PIL was not filed with genuine intent but only for attention and therefore
“this PIL has been filed for publicity and dismissed it.”
The High Court also imposed a cost of Rs 1 lakh on the petitioner for filing the case.
This ruling reinforces the judiciary’s view that issues which are already being considered by the Supreme Court should not be raised through parallel petitions before High Courts.
It also underlines the importance of discouraging publicity-driven litigations that do not serve the real purpose of public interest.
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