The Supreme Court Registry has flagged 14 procedural defects in the petition filed by Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, and nine other INDIA bloc leaders.
The petition challenges the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and alleges arbitrary functioning by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.
Key Procedural Objections Flagged by Registry
Due to these filing deficiencies, the matter could not be listed for immediate hearing on Tuesday. The petitioners’ legal team requested time to cure the defects and aims to have the matter listed following corrections. Major objections raised include:
- Court Fee Shortfall: A minor deficit of ₹220 in the submitted court fees.
- Missing Authorizations: Missing or unsigned vakalatnamas (authorizations) for nine out of the eleven petitioners, including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule, and Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut.
- Identity Card Readability: An illegible photocopy of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge’s identity documentation.
- Party Designation Query: A technical query regarding why individual Election Commissioners (Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi) were named alongside the Election Commission of India (ECI) as private respondents in a public interest writ petition.
Context of the Filing and Next Steps
The petition, filed through advocate S. Prasanna, follows a political march toward the apex court precinct after Chief Justice of India Surya Kant declined an informal meeting on sub-judice matters, clarifying that grievances should be submitted via formal judicial petitions.
The plea seeks a time-bound independent investigation into alleged unilateral decision-making within the poll panel, interim suspension of the SIR exercise, and booth-wise disclosures of voter deletions. The petitioners’ legal representation is currently addressing the registry’s objections to secure an early hearing date.
