The court upheld that procedural compliance in voter registration processes is mandatory, denying bulk objections that lack proper individual submissions as per statutory requirements.

JUDGMENT :

Smt. Vibha Kankanwadi, J.

Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. The petition is heard finally with the consent of the learned Advocates for the parties.

2. The petitioner is invoking constitutional powers of this Court under Article 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India and seeks writ of mandamus against the respondents to consider his representations dated 02.08.2024, 16.08.2024, 20.08.2024, 29.08.2024 and 20.09.2024 addressed to them to identify, verify and remove names of voters those are registered in voter’s list for more than one occasion/time. He also seeks writ of mandamus to direct respondent Nos.1 and 2 to provide adequate infrastructure to election machinery at district level to identify, verify and remove names of voters, whose names have been registered in the voter’s list on more than one occasion/time.

3. The petitioner is a Member of Legislative Assembly, Maharashtra State, who has been duly elected from Muktainagar Constituency in District Jalgaon. The elections for the Legislative Assembly for the State of Maharashtra are scheduled by the end of 2024. The Election Commission of India has notified the schedule of revision of Electoral Roll. Respondent No.2 made request to the Election Commission of India by letter dated 01.08.2024 for revision of Electoral Roll with 01.07.2024 as qualifying date. On 02.08.2024, the petitioner had submitted representation to respondent No.3 thereby bringing it to the notice of respondent No.3 that several persons, whose names were already appearing in the voters list, are again registered. This action is to give effect to bogus voting and defeat the election exercise. In the said representation, a specific prayer was made that every voter, whose name is to be recorded in voters list, be recorded after verifying the fact that the name of such voter is already recorded in the voters list or not. He prayed for deputing Government servants to undertake the said task of identifying duplication of names of the voters. The said representation has been given to various authorities on the same day. Respondent No.1 had then forwarded the said letter/representation by the petitioner to respondent No.2 for further action. An E-mail was given to respondent No.3 on 17.08.2024 whereby the petitioner submitted specific objection to draft Electoral Roll along with evidence providing the manner in which names of individuals have been duplicated. According to the petitioner, there are about 43 thousand names of the persons in the list, whose duplication has been effected or is in existence. Petitioner also submitted the objection to the draft electoral list on 20.08.2024 to respondent No.4. Once again objection was raised on 29.08.2024 and in September 2024 also. Respondent No.4 had organized a Committee wherein it was expressed that in the event of availability of infrastructure, namely, DSE/PSE TAB and old voters search portal by respondent Nos.1 to 3; respondent No.4 would be in a position to take steps to ascertain and verify repeated inclusion of names of the individuals in the voters list. However, thereafter the petitioner has not received any response. One more letter was addressed by the petitioner praying that his objection be considered and necessary steps be taken. As no actions have been taken, the petitioner has filed the present petition.

4. Reply has been filed on behalf of respondent Nos.3 and 4 by Mr. Girish Rameshwar Wakhare, Tahsildar Muktainagar, District Jalgaon in the capacity as Assistant Electoral Registration Officer, Muktainagar Assembly Constituency, District Jalgaon. He has stated that the Election Commission of India is duty bound to hold free and fair elections and right to vote is a statutory right. Such right cannot be denied to any elector by merely filing a complaint. The Election Commission of India has put a very sturdy mechanism to ensure that the right to vote is exercised by each and every eligible citizen. It is stated that when the petitioner had