New Delhi, Oct 26: The Delhi High Court has issued notices to the Election Commission and Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi on a petition filed by a BJP leader seeking deletion of names of illegal migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan from electoral rolls in the capital, that goes to polls on December 1. While issuing the notices, Justice B D Ahmed asked the respondents to file their replies by October 29, the next date of hearing. Petitioner Ved Vyas Mahajan, BJP Delhi unit Secretary sought quashing of the circular issued by the EC on August 21 last directing the Chief Electoral Officers to dispose of claims for inclusion in voters' list first and then complete the process of verification within 30 to 45 days. Despite categorical information and objections regarding duplicacy in the electoral rolls having been passed on to the the Election Commission and Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi, no action has been taken so far, the petitioner's counsel H S Phoolka and Ashok Kashyap alleged. As a result of the circular, a large number of claims have been made for inclusion of names in the electoral rolls", the petitioner said and claimed "bulk of the said claims are false and bogus".

Terming the procedure as "arbitrary, illegal and illogical", he alleged it gave a free hand for inclusion of names in the electoral rolls without verification and requested the court to direct the election commission to ensure that illegal migrants' names were deleted from the electoral rolls.
Bureau Report